Customer just bought the house, finished basement was a deal-breaker turned negotiating-chip. Walls and ceilings yellowed from years of cigar smoke (previous owner), faint odour even with windows open. Painting was the third item on the move-in list.
What we did
Nine hours over Friday-Saturday, two-person crew:
- Pre-clean: TSP wash on every surface (walls, ceiling, doors), neutralizes nicotine residue, otherwise it bleeds through paint
- Spot-primed the worst zones with shellac-based primer (only thing that fully blocks tobacco staining)
- Drop-cloths over the carpet, masked the trim
- Two coats of low-VOC eggshell on walls, two coats of flat ceiling paint above
- Repainted the stairwell as a continuous run with the basement (no visible transition line at the top)
Tobacco-staining tip
If you've bought a house with a long-time smoker history, regular paint won't cover. The nicotine and tar bleed through within weeks, and you're back to yellow. Shellac-based primer (BIN, Zinsser) is the only first-coat that actually seals it. We use it on every smoker-house job, and most are buyers who didn't know what they were stepping into.
