Retail Store Interior — Middletown

What the job involved

The only metric that mattered on this job was whether the store opened on time every day. A retail space that loses a Saturday loses more than the entire cost of the paint, so the finish quality is table stakes and the scheduling is the actual deliverable.

We phased the space and worked overnight. Fixtures, display units and stock were covered and, where necessary, moved and returned before opening so staff arrived to a floor that was ready to trade rather than a construction site.

The open ceiling deck with exposed track lighting was the technical part. Exposed structure has to be cut around rather than masked out wholesale, and lighting has to come down or be fully protected — overspray on a track head is not something you clean off.

Everything went on in low-odor, low-VOC commercial coatings so the space was genuinely usable the next morning instead of smelling of solvent for three days. High-traffic wall areas got a scrubbable commercial-grade product rather than a residential eggshell, which is the difference between a retail repaint that lasts and one that's marked up within a year.

Full scope of work

• Sales floor walls and open ceiling deck
• Work phased around trading hours
• Fixtures and display units protected
• Low-odor coatings for next-morning opening
• Stockroom and back-of-house
• Storefront entry and trim