New Build Exterior & Interior Paint — Marewa, Napier

This was a brand-new, architect-designed home in Marewa, in central Napier, designed by the owners' daughter, and we painted the whole thing, outside and in. New builds are some of our favourite work. There's no old paint to fight, and we get to set the finish up right from the start. Outside pairs vertical-groove cladding with white ColorSteel and trim. Inside is a warm scheme built around a deep brown, in a house with no trim anywhere to cover a rough edge.

Painting the exterior of a new build

Prepping new cladding properly

Even on a brand-new build, the prep is what makes the finish last. We filled all the nail holes with PAL Contract Filler, sanded everything back, and gapped where it needed it, then primed over the filler so none of it shows through the topcoat later on. The vertical-groove cladding got the same care, so the grooves stay crisp and the joins sit flush under the paint.

When the owners changed the colour mid-job

With two coats already on most of the cladding, the owners decided the mustardy brown they'd originally picked wasn't right against the white ColorSteel, and picked a red instead. We just got on with it. The build programme meant we couldn't get back for a couple of months, so we gave everything a thorough sand so the new colour had a surface to grip, then laid two fresh topcoats straight over. The extra work only added around $700 in hours to the bill. Changing your mind on a colour just means doing the sand and recoat properly.

Why we brush and roller rather than spray

We brush and roller our exteriors by default rather than spraying them. It takes longer, but it means any future touch-up blends in cleanly instead of needing a whole section re-coated. For this home we laid down two coats of Resene Lumbersider Low Sheen, a durable waterborne finish, with the red cladding standing out against the white trim.

Painting the interior of a new build

No skirtings, no architraves

Inside, this house has no skirtings and no architraves. Most homes have a skirting board along the bottom of the wall and an architrave framing each door and window. This one has a narrow shadow line instead, which builders call a negative detail. The wardrobe doors are flush flat panels with a shadow gap between them, painted the same colour as the wall they sit in.

That detailing is most of the reason the interior took the time it did. Trim isn't only there to look tidy. It hides things. A skirting covers a wall that doesn't quite meet the floor square, and an architrave covers the gap around a frame. With none of it, every join is on show and the paint line is what you see. The window reveals are lined in plywood and run straight into the wall, so the paint has to stop right on the timber edge the whole way down.

So every edge gets cut in by hand with a brush. Cutting in is running a straight line freehand where two surfaces meet, and here there was no trim to land it against.

The colour scheme

Inside, the scheme is built on a deep chocolate brown. It runs as a feature wall in the bedrooms against a soft cream, with the wardrobe doors picked up in the same cream and warm off-white through the rest of the house.

Where two colours meet on an internal corner with no trim between them, there's no bead or scotia to land the edge against. Get it slightly off and you'll see it from across the room.

Through the open-plan kitchen and living the walls are a warm off-white, against the plywood joinery and the timber-lined ceiling over the outdoor room.

Got a new build that needs painting, inside or out? Get in touch and we'll sort it.