Painting a New Build House
Ready to paint over the developer’s white in your new build, but not sure where to start?
This guide covers the paint system, which rooms to do now, and which to leave until later.
Read these six before you open a tin in a Coventry new build.
- Are you allowed to paint a new build?
- Why does my new paint look patchy?
- What paint system works on a new build?
- How does the job run, room by room?
- Which rooms should you paint now?
- What goes wrong in the first year?
Call 024 7542 6652 today and speak to Ryan, the local decorator who paints new builds across Coventry.
Reviews From Coventry Customers
The place is now like a new house.
I am immensely grateful for his expertise and dedication regarding his work.
Definitely recommend.
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
Two coats quoted, not one
New-build walls are priced for what a porous developer coat needs, so the finish is even rather than patchy.
Repairs primed before painting
Every filled crack and nail pop is spot-primed first.
Flexible where the house moves
Wall-to-ceiling junctions are caulked to move, not filled hard.
One local decorating partner
Godiva Decorators is one local decorator covering Coventry.
Are You Allowed to Paint a New Build?
Yes. It is your house, and no permission is needed. Nothing in a standard warranty stops you decorating it.
People ask this because the year-long advice gets repeated without its reason attached. Left unexplained, it starts to sound like a rule rather than a caution. It is sensible advice about a building that is still losing water.
Where that advice does and does not apply is further down this page.
Wondering if painting affects your new-build warranty? The warranty side of it is on the page about new build decorating in Coventry.
The one thing worth doing before any of it is settling the snagging list. Painting over an item you have reported makes it harder to show what was there.
Why Does One Coat Over the Developer’s Paint Look Patchy?
Because the developer’s coat is not really a finish. It is usually a single thin coat of contract matt, a low-vinyl trade emulsion chosen to cover new plasterboard quickly and cheaply. It behaves in three ways that catch people out.
It is porous. One thin coat over fresh skim leaves an absorbent surface, and it absorbs unevenly. Your first coat sinks in more in some places than others. That is the patchiness, and a second coat fixes it.
It cannot be washed. Low vinyl means low scrub resistance. Wiping a mark takes colour with it, or burnishes a shiny patch into the matt. That is why touching up a new-build wall almost never works, and why the answer is usually the whole wall.
It is often sprayed. Even coverage in the middle, thinner in corners, and cut lines at ceilings and skirtings that are less crisp than they look from across the room. Those edges usually want cutting in properly rather than following the existing line.
So the practical rule for a new build is simple: treat what is on the wall as a primer. Plan for two coats of whatever you are putting over it. One coat of a good emulsion over contract matt is the single most common way a new-build repaint ends up looking worse than it started.
What Paint System Works on a New Build?
Every new-build room needs the right product, not one all-purpose paint. For most rooms, that means a durable, washable matt or mid-sheen emulsion.
If you are wondering what to buy beyond that, the honest answer is nothing exotic: no special new-build paint range exists. The point is durability over a surface that has none, so the specification below is about product category rather than about brand.
Walls in living space: a washable matt or a mid-sheen. A durable, scrubbable matt emulsion is the usual choice because it keeps the flat look people want while surviving contact. It is the direct answer to the developer coat’s one real weakness.
Hall, stairs and landing: step up again. These walls take more contact than any others in a house, so this is where a genuinely wipeable product earns its price. A slight sheen also survives cleaning better than a dead flat finish.
Kitchens and bathrooms: a moisture-resistant product. Formulated for humidity and condensation, and worth having in a new build in particular, because the house is still giving off moisture in its first year.
Ceilings: a flat matt. Sheen on a ceiling shows every imperfection under a downlight, and new builds are full of downlights.
Woodwork: a water-based satin or eggshell. Modern water-based trim paints stay white rather than yellowing. They also dry fast enough for two coats in a day, and smell far less in a house you are living in.
What to avoid. Another coat of contract matt, which repeats the problem you are trying to solve. And vinyl silk on a wall with any imperfection in it, because silk finds every one.
Get My Free Quote
Send Ryan your room list, and he will quote every room to the same standard.
How the Work Runs, Room by Room
Sort the snagging list first
Once a new-build repaint is booked, the steps go in this order, from the snagging list to the furniture going back in the room. Anything the developer owes you gets reported and settled before it is painted over. That order round protects you and costs nothing.
Fill, caulk and sand
Nail pops, hairline cracks at wall-to-ceiling junctions and the small dents that arrive with the furniture. Junctions get a flexible caulk rather than a rigid filler, because they will keep moving slightly.
Spot-prime the repairs
Filler is more absorbent than the wall around it, so an unprimed repair flashes through the finish coats as a dull patch.
Ceilings, then walls, then woodwork
Top down, so nothing lands on a finished surface. On a new build the woodwork is usually the biggest single improvement, because the factory finish is thin.
Two full coats on the walls
Not one. The developer coat is porous enough that a single coat over it will look uneven whatever you paid for the paint.
Leave it to harden before the furniture goes back
Emulsion takes furniture against it after about a day, woodwork wants longer. The full timings are on the page about moving furniture after painting.
Get My Free Quote
Call 024 7542 6652 and ask Ryan to walk you through the sequence for your rooms.
Which Rooms Should You Do Now, and Which Should Wait?
This is the useful version of the wait-a-year advice, because it separates the surfaces that move from the ones that just get dirty.
| Where | Do it now or wait? | Why |
|---|---|---|
| Hall, stairs and landing | Now | The most contact in the house on the least cleanable finish |
| Woodwork throughout | Now | Thin factory finish, and timber does not settle with the building |
| A room you have already furnished | Now | Doing it later means moving everything twice |
| Kitchen and bathroom | Now | Moisture-resistant paint is worth having in the first year, not after |
| Bedrooms and living rooms | Either | Do them when you want them, and accept a hairline crack may need filling |
| Large flat ceilings | Worth waiting | Where settlement cracking shows first, and the most annoying to redo |
| The stairwell wall | Worth waiting | Tall, uninterrupted, awkward to access, and the one you least want to do twice |
The pattern is that height and unbroken area predict cracking, while contact predicts wear. Wait on the first, get on with the second.
If you are doing several rooms, doing them in one visit is cheaper per room than spreading them out. Access equipment goes up once, and materials are bought once.
What Goes Wrong in the First Year
All four of these are normal on a new house, and all four have a specific answer that is not the obvious one.
Wall to ceiling
Hairline Cracks
The joint between two different materials, opening very slightly as the house dries. Raked out and filled with a flexible caulk, not a rigid filler, because it will move again.
Small circles
Nail Pops
Timber studwork drying and the fixing head lifting a disc of the board finish. Refixed, filled, sanded and spot-primed. Cosmetic, and easier once the movement has stopped.
Dull patches
Flashing and Sinkage
Repairs and porous areas absorbing more than the wall around them. Prevented by spot-priming every filled area before the finish coats go on.
Not cosmetic
Anything Wider Than a Hair
Cracks that grow, run diagonally, or step through brickwork are a question for your developer rather than for a decorator. Report before decorating over.
Filling and painting a settlement crack in month three often means doing it again by month nine, because the movement has not finished. Most of it settles after the first full heating season.
Does a New House Take Longer to Dry?
It does, and it is the reason behind most of the advice on this page.
A newly built house holds a lot of water in its plaster, screed, mortar and blockwork. It leaves slowly, over the whole first year. That is why condensation on new-build windows is so common in the first winter. It is also why moisture-resistant paint in the kitchen and bathroom is worth specifying.
What helps: background heating kept low and steady rather than blasted, trickle vents left open, and extractor fans used. Rooms that are ventilated dry evenly.
What does not: sealing the house up to keep the heat in, and drying laundry indoors without ventilation in the first winter.
None of that stops you decorating. It changes which paint goes in which room and how long each coat takes to harden.
Get My Free Quote
Ask Ryan which paint suits your new build’s first winter, and get a written quote.
Painting a New Build FAQs
Get My Free Quote
Fill in the form below for a free quote: