Curlew
Montessori.
Repainted over March break. No paint smell when school reopened Monday.
A school repaint has two requirements: the building has to be ready when classes resume, and it can’t smell of paint when thirty children walk back in. Curlew Montessori gave us the March-break week to repaint the whole building — classrooms, hallways, and common rooms. We used zero-VOC paint throughout, ran commercial air scrubbers for the length of the job, and handed the building back on schedule.
The brief
No smell. No closed days.
March break is the only full week a working school can give up. Miss that window and you’re painting around children, which we don’t do — a Montessori room runs on low shelves and floor work, so there is no way to close off half of it. The other constraint was odour. Conventional paint can off-gas for days after the work is done, and in a childcare space that rules the product out. The spec had to be zero-VOC from the start.
№ 01 · The window
One week, in shifts.
We took the keys the day break started and ran the crew in shifts, with overtime on both ends of the day, so every classroom, hallway, and common room got two full coats and proper dry time inside the week. The reopening date was fixed; the schedule was built backward from it.
№ 02 · The air
Zero-VOC paint, air scrubbers running.
Two things kept the smell out. We specced zero-VOC paint throughout — no off-gassing, safe to occupy the same day — and ran commercial air scrubbers in every room as we worked, so odour and airborne particulate were pulled out continuously instead of settling. By handover there was no paint smell anywhere in the building.
№ 03 · Monday morning
Doors open, on schedule.
The school reopened on time. Staff came back to fresh cream walls and crisp white trim, and the classrooms had no paint smell. No carried-over work days, no airing-out period, and no need to keep the windows open for the first week back. The building was ready for the children on Monday morning.
The finished school
Schools & childcare FAQ
What administrators ask first
- Can you paint a school or daycare while it stays open?
- We schedule the work into the closures a school already has — March break, summer, PA days, weekends, and evenings — so we never paint around children. For Curlew we took the full March-break week and handed the building back before staff returned.
- Is the paint safe for a room full of kids?
- We use zero-VOC paint on childcare and healthcare projects — no off-gassing, no chemical haze, safe to reoccupy the same day. With commercial air scrubbers running through the job, there is no lingering paint smell by handover.
- How do you keep paint smell out of an occupied building?
- Two things: zero-VOC, low-odour product throughout, and commercial air filtration running in each room as we work so airborne particulate and odour are pulled out continuously rather than left to settle and linger.
- Can you hit a hard reopening deadline?
- Yes — institutional deadlines are most of our commercial work. We staff in shifts and work overtime on both ends of the day to get two full coats and proper dry time inside the window. The reopening date is the fixed point everything is built around.
- Are you insured and cleared to work in a school?
- Yes — $4M commercial liability, WSIB-covered crew, certificate of insurance on request, and we accommodate vulnerable-sector and site-access requirements common to schools and childcare centres.
School, daycare, or clinic on a deadline?
We’ll have it ready for Monday.
Zero-VOC, scheduled into your closure, handed back fresh and smell-free. Send the details and we’ll send a fixed quote within one business day.