Interior decoration sounds simple, and it is—in principle, at least. But there's more to it than slapping on a couple of coats of paint and putting your feet up while it dries, which is why people choose to let a professional handle it instead of going it alone. One potentially difficult area is preparing the walls before the actual painting can begin.

When you hire a painting company, they may include all the necessary prep work in their service, or they might only include some of it. It may even be optional, but whatever the case, it's likely there are at least a few things you need to do. Talk to your painter in advance and make sure you know who needs to do what before the painting work can begin.

Clear the room

It's important to remove as much furniture as possible from rooms that are going to be painted, for two reasons.

The first is that, although you can cover things up with plastic sheeting, there's still a risk of paint getting onto furnishings. Keeping them out of the way prevents this from happening. The second reason to remove furniture from the room is that it allows painters to work freely and safely without obstruction.

When you're shifting your furniture, don't forget to remove pictures and shelves from walls, too, or they'll get in the way.

Repair any damage

Walls tend to develop slight damage over time, whether it's holes from putting up pictures or thin cracks caused by moisture or ageing paintwork.

If you want to get a good-looking finish, any damage needs to be repaired and smoothed out before painting the walls. This can be done using a suitable filling product so you can concentrate on the damaged areas instead of coating the entire wall.

Clean the walls

Before you give the walls a general clean, look for any spots of grease or dirt and clean them thoroughly using soapy water. You should also make sure there isn't any mould on the existing paintwork.

Once any problem spots have been dealt with, the walls need to be cleaned from top to bottom using sugar soap or another product that's suited to this purpose. Make sure you leave plenty of time for the walls to dry after cleaning.

Get sanding

The final step before painting is to sand down the walls. This gives them a smooth, even finish and gets rid of any lumps or bumps.

After the sanding stage is complete, it's important to wipe down and vacuum the walls to remove any dust, giving the new paint a better chance to adhere properly and dry smoothly.