Well normally you should wait to do finishing jobs until all demo is complete.

Demo is dirty and things can fly. Hes on a schedule and cant sit there and spend a week carefully tearing little by little up. Now he shouldnt be putting holes in the walls or breaking windows but you get what im saying.

If i were you i would just plan on doing some spot fixes after hes done.
Cardboard will work if you want but keep in mind that painters tape can still peel new paint off walls. Painters tape has fine print that says it wont peel off paint on walls that are properly prepared and paint has fully cured.

Yes, that's the problem. It would be nice to have the old flooring removed, then paint, then have the floors put in. But they want to tear it out and start putting the new in on the same day. I don't know what they will be using to tear out the tile, but will use brown paper if that will protect the wall from both dust and any tile or thinset chunks.

Dont worry about dust. No matter what it will get dusty and a thorough cleaning should already be assumed when ever a remod job is happening.

Brown paper or contractors paper wont help against "chunks". Cardboard would help better. Like i said just be prepared to do some minor paint touch ups.

gregmills is correct in that demo work should all be done before any finish work, but since you've already painted, you might be able to protect your paint from damage and save yourself some remedial work. A local construction supply here sells 4' x 8' sheets of corrugated cardboard that are inexpensive. I would suggest you buy something similar and ask the contractor to lean the sheets against the wall as he proceeds with the tearup. Covering walls completely is often dicey. Plastic or paper won't protect against flying debris and there's the question of how to attach something to the wall without risking damage from pins or tape. Cardboard will usually suffice but more hearty alternatives like Masonite or Thermo-Ply are available but more costly.

Only the foyer has tile that has to be removed, so maybe we can just cover those walls with cardboard and the rest with brown paper? The restoration company that removed part of the wood flooring and the baseboard didn't hurt the walls other than holes from tearing out the baseboard without cutting the caulking first.

We had to have a very large portion of the floor in our new home removed and replaced TWICE, and it was a mess both times. The floor was wide plank engineered wood glued to a cement substrate. This is what I learned. The dust was insidious and was everywhere. If possible, I suggest turning off your HVAC and covering the registers so dust does not go inside. Also, place towels along the doorways so dust doesn't get underneath into other rooms. My husband and I covered almost everything with plastic sheeting held with painter's tape. (The tape did remove some paint from the ceilings but it wasn't too bad). We tried to hang the sheeting from ceiling to floor to block off areas where the floor wouldn't be replaced. This was difficult as our first floor is very open. It took a long time to cover everything, but it did help. I hope everything goes well.

Thanks ruthie. I am a little worried about the family room that is open to the foyer. I wondered if the plastic would stay up across that opening or if their machinery would blow it down or suck it off the walls.

When we ground the adhesive off the floor to do the calcium carbonate test, it made a horrible dust mess and that was just 3 little spots, so I can imagine how bad it will be to do a big room and foyer.

The owner of the floor installation company said it would take 1/2 day for removal but they worked on it all day today and it doesn't look like they are finished.

On the plus side, they used a grinder with a vacuum attached and there was very little dust.

This post was edited by marti8a on Mon, Dec 23, 13 at 22:15

Thank you for the update. And that's great about the low dust; that was a major issue for us.