Repainting a working hotel or restaurant without shutting it.
Guest rooms, dining areas, corridors and back-of-house repainted in phased handovers around your service hours, using low-odour systems and forced ventilation so a zone can be aired, cleaned and walked with your duty manager before it goes back into service.
- Free site inspection
- Written, itemised quote
- 1-year workmanship warranty
- Same-day callback
At a glance
Can a hotel or restaurant be painted while it stays open?
Yes, in phases. We take a defined block, say a floor of rooms, one dining section or a corridor run, screen it off, work it in the window your operations allow, and hand it back clean and aired. The constraint is rarely the painting itself. It's how much of the property you can release at once, and how long the coating needs before the furniture goes back.
When this is the answer, and when it is not.
Sending you to the wrong service wastes your money and our time. This is how to tell.
This is likely right if
- Guest rooms or dining areas look tired but walls, skirting and joinery are sound
- You are refreshing between seasons, after a franchise inspection, or ahead of a rebrand
- Corridors, lift lobbies and stairwells are scuffed from trolleys, luggage and daily traffic
- Back-of-house and service areas need a wipeable finish that survives daily cleaning chemicals
Something else comes first if
- Kitchen or toilet walls are damp, or the wall behind tiling is saturated, the water source has to be traced and treated first, a coat applied over a wall that's still passing moisture is bonded to a surface that keeps moving, and it lifts again
- A dining-area ceiling is stained from an air-conditioning drain or a slab leak, that's a plumbing and waterproofing job before it is a painting job
- The property is mid-fit-out with civil work, ducting and false-ceiling grids still going in, paint applied at that stage will be damaged by the trades that follow
What the service includes.
Phasing plan agreed with operations
We sit with your manager and fix which rooms, sections or corridor runs come out of service, in what order, and what time each block is handed back for the next cover or check-in.
Surface and traffic assessment
We check each area for cooking grease and nicotine films, trolley scuffs, chair-back damage, hollow plaster behind headboards, and old high-sheen coatings that won't take a new coat without keying.
Screening, floor protection and guest signage
Zip-wall screens or hoarding between the work zone and the live area, floor protection over carpet and stone, soft furnishings sheeted, and clear signage on guest approach routes.
Degreasing and washing down
Kitchen, service-corridor and bar walls washed down to remove cooking grease and hand-oil before any filler or primer, because paint won't bond through a grease film.
Low-odour system, applied in your window
Low-VOC, low-odour interior systems with forced ventilation so the space clears before handback. Coat count and specification are stated in your quotation.
Zone-by-zone handback record
Each zone signed off with your duty manager against a snag list, touch-ups closed before we open the next phase, and a written warranty with stated conditions issued at completion.
Not included, or quoted separately
- Kitchen exhaust hoods, ducting interiors and grease-trap enclosures
- Fire-rated and intumescent coating systems, which are a separately specified scope
- Waterproofing, damp source treatment, and wet-area or terrace tanking
- Moving, dismantling or reinstalling fixed seating, banquettes, mirrors, artwork and light fittings
- Signage, menu boards, external branding elements and vinyl graphics
The sequence.
Walk the property with your manager
We walk guest floors, front-of-house and back-of-house together, measure the paintable area and note which surfaces carry grease, damp or impact damage. Occupancy patterns and service timings are recorded here, not assumed.
Build the phasing and access plan
Zones, sequence, working windows, lift and service-stair access, material storage and staff routes are agreed in writing before a quotation is issued.
Sample and approve on site
Colour and sheen checked on your own wall under your own lighting, restaurant lighting is usually warm and dim, and a shade approved on a paper card rarely reads the same on the wall.
Isolate the zone
Screens up, floors and fixtures protected, guest signage placed and ventilation arranged before any surface is touched.
Prepare, then coat
Degrease, scrape, fill, sand, prime and apply the agreed coats, with harder, washable finishes in corridors and service areas where cleaning is daily.
Clean, snag and hand the zone back
The zone is cleaned, aired, walked with your duty manager, snagged and returned to service before the next zone opens.
What moves the price on this job.
We do not publish a rate, because it would change once someone measured your property. These are the variables that decide it.
- Measured wall and ceiling area across all zones, not room count or cover count
- How much of the property can be taken out of service at once, tighter phasing means more mobilisations for the same area
- Whether work must run in night or between-service windows rather than a continuous shift
- Grease and nicotine load on kitchen, bar and service-corridor surfaces, which decides how much washing and sealing is needed
- Finish grade and washability, which is higher in corridors and service areas than in a guest bedroom
- Height and access in atriums, double-height dining rooms and stairwells, where tower or scaffold access is needed
Hotel and Restaurant Painting — your questions.
Will guests or diners smell the paint?
Low-odour systems and forced ventilation reduce it sharply, but they don't remove it entirely on the day of application. That's why we screen the zone, ventilate through the working window, and hand back only once the space has cleared. Rooms directly adjacent to a working zone are best held out of sale for that night, and we'll tell you which ones at the phasing stage.
Can you work overnight so we lose no covers?
Yes, where the building permits it. Night working suits dining rooms, banquet halls and lobbies that empty completely. It needs agreed access, lift use, security clearance for our team and somewhere to store material. Night phasing changes the labour arrangement, so it is priced into the quotation rather than added afterwards.
Why does the kitchen wall need washing before painting?
Cooking vapour deposits a thin grease film on every surface in and around a kitchen, including the service corridor. Paint bonds to whatever sits on top, so a coat applied over that film is bonded to grease and peels in sheets, usually first near the hobs. We degrease and rinse before any filler or primer for exactly this reason.
Our corridor walls scuff again within months. What changes that?
Corridors take trolley wheels, luggage and shoulder contact all day, and a standard interior emulsion is not built for it. We specify a harder, washable finish in high-traffic runs and can add a protective band at trolley height. The wall still needs cleaning, but marks then come off instead of taking the coat with them.
Can you paint occupied guest rooms?
We prefer not to. A room being painted should be out of sale for that period so the surface can be prepared, coated and aired properly. Working around a guest's belongings compromises both the finish and their stay. We normally take rooms in blocks that match your occupancy dips, which your revenue manager can usually forecast.
Related services
- Office PaintingSame phased, out-of-hours approach for admin floors and corporate areas in the same building.
- Wood and Metal PaintingGuest room doors, frames, railings and metal service doors usually need recoating alongside the walls.
- Waterproofing and ProtectionKitchen, toilet and terrace damp must be stopped at source before any repaint will hold.
Let us look at your walls first.
Tell us about the property and we will set up a free colour and wall inspection. You get a written, itemised quotation afterwards, with no obligation to go ahead.
- We call you back the same day to get a picture of the property and the surfaces.
- We agree a time and come out for the free inspection.
- You get the written scope and itemised quotation.
- Nothing starts until you approve it.