The Best Paint for Rentals and HMOs
Landlord or HMO manager, wondering why the walls look tired again so soon after a repaint?
This guide sets out which paint to specify room by room, and why the cheapest tin is rarely the cheapest choice.
Six decisions separate a Coventry rental that needs repainting every year from one that only needs a wipe.
- Why do my rental walls keep failing?
- What paint should I use in the bedrooms?
- What paint holds up in communal areas?
- What paint copes with kitchens and bathrooms?
- Which colours do not date or show marks?
- Does the pricier paint pay for itself?
Call 024 7542 6652 today and speak to Ryan, the local decorator who covers paint specification for rentals and HMOs across Coventry.
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The place is now like a new house.
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How Godiva Decorators Works
Godiva Decorators works with a local, Coventry-based painter and decorator. When you call, you speak to Ryan directly, and you arrange the quote and the work with him.
- Call and speak to Ryan — the decorator who does the work, not a call centre.
- Tell him about the job — the rooms, the timing and anything you are unsure about.
- He visits and sends a written quote setting out the work before anything is booked.
- You agree the work directly with Ryan, including the schedule and the final walkthrough.
Why Choose Godiva Decorators
Specified per room, not per property
Communal routes get a harder finish than bedrooms, because they wear several times faster.
Two coats and real preparation
Durable finishes get their toughness from film thickness. A single coat is a false economy that shows within the first year.
A written record of what went on
Product, finish and colour per property, so touch-ups match and the next quote is faster.
Local to Coventry
Godiva Decorators works with one trusted decorator. He covers Coventry and the surrounding areas.
Why Do Rental Walls Fail, and It Is Not the Tenants?
Walk into a rental due for redecoration and the damage is almost never spread evenly. It is concentrated at hand height by light switches, along the line a sofa sat, and around door handles. It also shows in patches where somebody has tried to clean something off.
Cleaning is the important one, and it explains the four patterns below:
- Burnishing. Rubbing a matt wall polishes it. The mark comes off, but a shiny patch the shape of the cloth stays behind, permanently. The sheen has changed, not the colour.
- Colour lift. On a cheap contract emulsion, cleaning takes pigment with the dirt, so the cleaned patch is lighter than the wall around it.
- Film failure at contact points. A thin, chalky film gives up where things touch it repeatedly. Behind a bed, along a hallway, at the turn of a stair.
- Touching up that never matches. A patch of the same paint over an aged wall reads as a patch, because the surrounding wall has already changed. On a cleanable finish there is usually nothing to touch up in the first place.
The pattern behind all four is that the paint could not be cleaned, so it had to be replaced instead. A finish that takes a wipe turns a repaint into a clean. That is where the money is.
What Should Go on Bedroom and Living-Room Walls?
Once it is clear why the old paint failed, the practical question is what to put on in its place. For bedrooms and living rooms, that means a durable or scrubbable matt emulsion, not a standard contract matt. The category matters more than the brand. Every major manufacturer now makes a washable matt aimed at exactly this, and they all behave broadly the same way. What they share is a tougher binder that takes cleaning without burnishing.
Matt, not silk. Silk was the old answer to durability and it is the wrong one in a bedroom. It shows every imperfection in the wall, and it shows roller marks when it is touched in. In older Coventry terraces it also sits badly on walls that are rarely flat. Modern washable matts do the job silk used to do without the sheen.
Two coats, always. Durable emulsions get their toughness from film thickness. One coat over an old colour is a false economy that fails in the first year. It is the most common corner cut in rental decorating.
Preparation still decides the outcome. Filling, caulking and sanding are what a good finish is made of. A premium paint over unprepared walls looks worse than a mid-range paint over prepared ones.
Not sure what proper preparation involves? It is covered on the page about hiring a painter and decorator.
Keep a record of what went on. The colour, the finish and the product, written down per property. It makes the next touch-up match and it makes the next quote faster.
Communal Areas, Stairwells and Hallways
This is where the specification genuinely changes rather than just improving. A communal route in an HMO takes more contact in a month than a bedroom takes in a year. It needs a finish chosen for that. Godiva Decorators specifies this finish as standard. That applies to every landlord and HMO decorating job it introduces in Coventry.
Walls
A Scuff-Resistant or Trade Durable Finish
The category above the washable matts, sold for schools, hospitals and offices. It costs noticeably more per tin, but it takes repeated cleaning without changing sheen. In a stairwell that is the difference between cleaning annually and repainting annually.
Woodwork
A Hard Satin or Eggshell on Doors and Frames
Communal doors, frames and skirting take knocks rather than dirt. A harder sheen resists chipping and wipes clean. It also touches in far better than a flat finish when something does get damaged.
Colour
Mid Tones, Not Brilliant White
Brilliant white in a high-traffic hallway shows every mark and starts looking tired within months. A soft neutral or a warm mid grey hides contact marks and still photographs bright for a listing.
Practical
One Colour Through the Whole Route
Hall, stairs and landings in a single colour and a single product makes touching up trivial. It also makes the building read as larger. Different colours per floor cost more and gain nothing.
Any painting of fire doors follows the fire-safety specification for that door rather than a decorating preference, and where a door is certificated the specification comes from the council or the door’s own documentation.
Get My Free Quote
Call 024 7542 6652 and ask Ryan what your communal areas need.
What About Kitchens, Bathrooms and Moisture?
The failure mode here is different. Walls in a kitchen or bathroom do not wear out. They get wet, and the paint either copes with that or peels.
A moisture-resistant emulsion, not a standard one. Kitchen and bathroom emulsions contain fungicide and a tighter film. In a shared house with several people showering daily, that is not a luxury.
Ventilation beats paint every time. An extractor that works, and a tenant who uses it, prevents more mould than any product does. Where mould keeps coming back after redecoration, the answer is the ventilation rather than the next tin.
Treat mould before painting, never over it. Painting over a mould stain gives you the same stain again within weeks, because the spores are still there. The surface is treated, allowed to dry, and then decorated.
Woodwork and cills take a harder finish. Window cills in a bathroom or kitchen collect condensation. A satin or eggshell survives that where a matt will not.
Sealant is part of the job. Old sealant round a bath or a worktop is where the water gets behind the paint. Renewing it costs very little and it is the difference between a five-year finish and a one-year one.
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Call 024 7542 6652 and get the right moisture-resistant paint for your kitchens and bathrooms.
Which Colours Do Not Date and Do Not Show Marks?
Colour matters here for two reasons: how a room shows to a prospective tenant, and how easily contact marks disappear between viewings. Soft off-whites and warm pale greys work best for bedrooms and living rooms. They photograph well for a listing, and they take any furniture a tenant brings. They also do not read as a decision somebody else made.
A shade darker in hallways and stairwells. Contact marks show least on a mid tone. Brilliant white in a communal hall is the single most common specification mistake in rental decorating.
White ceilings, white woodwork, everywhere. It is the one place consistency pays for itself, because any room can be touched up from the same tin.
The same palette across the portfolio. One wall colour, one woodwork colour, one ceiling colour, across every property. Touch-ups stop needing a colour match, leftover paint moves between properties, and a turnaround stops depending on remembering what was used in that house.
Avoid feature walls and strong colours. They narrow the appeal, they date faster, and they turn a partial repaint into a full one when the colour is discontinued.
Why Does the Cheapest Paint Cost More Over Five Years?
The argument is about repaint frequency rather than about the price of a tin.
A contract matt in a communal hallway typically needs redoing every year. Marks cannot be cleaned off it, and touch-ups do not blend. A durable finish in the same hallway is cleaned rather than repainted. It goes two to three years between full repaints.
The paint itself is a small part of either number. What a repaint costs is labour, access equipment and preparation, plus the days the property is not lettable while it happens. Halving the number of repaints halves all of that. The extra cost of the better product is recovered on the first cycle.
The same logic works in reverse for bedrooms. A room that gets one occupant a year and light use does not need a stairwell specification. Putting one there is money that does not come back. Matching the product to the wear is the whole skill.
Planning a full turnaround for the summer booking window? What that involves is on the page about landlord and HMO decorating in Coventry.
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Call 024 7542 6652 and speak to a landlord and HMO decorator for Coventry.
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