I seriously doubt you finding someone that is proficient in all three trades. Hire specialiests for each job.

Refinishing wood floors requires some specialized equipment. A drum sander can easily destroy wood flooring if an inexperienced operator uses it. There is a sander model(USand is one brand name) that even a first time user can successfully operate, but it takes much longer to sand finished flooring.

Building a railing needs a pro, just too many build steps needing experience to handle.

You could get a handy person(I had experience painting(taught by pros) painting and developed experience with flooring(would not try the drum sander, however) and have sanded/finished several floors(including the ones in our current house). But, I would need to rent equipment and would take much longer than a flooring pro.

Painting is much more than slapping paint on a wall. One type of paint can require a different application technique than others. Walls may need to be cleaned and primer applied. Minimizing paint brush marks(when cutting in) is an art and requires a really good brush. Rolling without roller marks means using the correct roller type and nap.

you want a reputable general contractor

Does monkey know which order to do all of this? And is he willing to mediate the the said she said disputes over overlaps in job timing and conflicting responsibilities? If monkey wants to sort all of that out, and then be responsible if the wrong order of operations is decided on, then go ahead and self GC.

Does monkey know which order to do all of this? And is he willing to mediate the he said she said disputes over overlaps in job timing and conflicting responsibilities?

There isn't a right order for these three things. You really have to wait 72 hours between flooring and painting but if you ask 100 painters which is better 50 will say paint first and 50 will say floor first. The railings can be done any time.

To the OP... Don't get a contractor for this. Take the money that you would pay a GC and use it to hire a better painter and a better floor guy. Explain your situation and then hand them each others cards and tell them to coordinate the work with each other. You will end up with a superior result for the same money.

The railing will need to be either stained or painted. And will need to be done before the floors are done for best results. If done after the other projects, pick your poison between using a carpenter to stain or paint, or calling in someone else to finish it. Railings aren't usually the province of floor finishers. Nor do many painters feel comfortable doing a quality stain job. This is where vetting your trade choices and knowing who you want in there first comes into place.

Great plan!

Pay a G.C. $1,500 to save paying someone $150 to stain. Can I do your taxes? I will guarantee to get you a $150 improvement in your tax position for the bargain rate of only $1,500 more than you currently pay.

Railings aren't usually the province of floor finishers.

Most floor finishers will have stained railings when they refinish stairs. My addiction is restoring old houses and I have used half a dozen floor finishing companies and every one of them has stained the rails.

Furthermore, both the painter the flooring guys will let you know what they need to do a great job. I will give you a hint, if you decide to go with the halfwall, it has to be built before you can paint it and railings have to be there before staining. If you somehow need a GC to tell you that you can't paint or stain imaginary things, maybe home ownership isn't for you.

DIY! That what YouTube is all about!

Oh boy ... I thought this was a simple question but you've all given me a lot to think about. Based on what I'm hearing though, I'm leaning towards not hiring a GC because it's really just a matter of doing things in the right order. The painters would come first, then carpet removal guys (or gals). Surely they'd be capable of removing the railing in order to remove the carpet. If the floors are in livable condition, I'll just leave them. Then once all that is done, I'll hire someone to build the half wall, which surely they can paint. In all honesty, I wasn't even considering a GC, just wondered if there were people who could do all of it, like a DIY'er would

Here are some photos. The carpet is just in the living and adjoined formal dining area, as well as the hallway and the half stair case going up from the split entry. The kitchen and the bedrooms all have hardwood. Seems too simple a job for a GC, in fact I would DIY it if I had the time and my craftsmanship didn't suck so much!

Monkey,I aploigize on behalf of those who attempted to help then stepped back and others that would offer advice but don't because of the back and forth hissing. There are individuals who can do all of the tasks and do them well but finding one of those rare individuals is v-e-r-y difficult. After hearing more from you,I'm convinced you are more than capiable of vetting tradesmen. I hope this experience doesn't keep you from asking farter questions or returning to let us know how it turned out for you.

If you were doing extensive renovations or adding an addition, I'd suggest getting a GC.

Painting, flooring and changing a railing are not extensive renovations and is easy enough the coordinate.

Personally, the first thing I'd do is rip out the carpet. This can be done by yourself. It's easy to cut and roll it and remove the tack strips around the edges. Then you'll have a complete picture of what's going on and getting quotes to either redo the flooring underneath or laying new hardwood will be easier.

again Hire a solid GC they will have the proper subs. its all in hiring the quality contractor and wading thru the abyss of bad information on the web

The problem with this particular site is that the people who could give the best advice are the people who would rather play consumer punching bag.

I find myself arguing against one size fits all advice on this site often. I do believe that too many people try to do projects on their own when they shouldn't. They save money at the expense of quality and time. In the end, they throw a lot of time at projects to get inferior results. However, just because that advice works sometimes, doesn't mean it works every time.

In this particular situation very few reputable G.C.'s would even take this job. One side-effect of a G.C. is that you lose the right to sue the subs for problem work, since the G.C. hired them you only have standing to sue him. No one wants to stand between a homeowner and the flooring and painting companies. Those are two of the areas where homeowners have the most unreasonable expectations.

I should have let the advice go because no G.C. is even going to take the job. I asked my G.C. about this today and he laughed.

"I should have let the advice go because no G.C. is even going to take the job. I asked my G.C. about this today and he laughed."

It depends. If this house is in a neighborhood where a GC does a lot of work and the customers were referred by repeat customers, he's doing the job. If he's smart.

" ... he's doing the job. If he's smart."

Yeah, why wouldn't he? He's basically getting paid to let someone else do the work. There is no "managing" to speak of in a project this small. Chances are he'll never even show up on the job except once to bid it and once to get paid. Of course, that's assuming that he subs it out. Maybe he'll decide to forgo the flooring specialist and rent a drum sander himself. And maybe he'll hire a couple of day laborers to paint.

Hiring a reputable floor refinisher and a reputable painter is as easy as hiring a reputable General Contractor. And in this case, you don't need one of them.

To answer your question about one person doing your work vs needing multiple people, you are going to need multiple people.

You want flooring people, who do floors for a living, to do the floors. There are too many different things that can go wrong with installing/sanding/finishing floors to take a chance and allow someone to do your floors who doesn't just do floors for a living. Are there people who could do an excellent job aside from flooring people? Absolutely. But, it's going to be hard to find someone like that who can also do the other things you want done. It's actually not all that easy to find good flooring people who do it for a living, in my experience. Be careful who you hire.

Painting..if you don't want to do it yourself, hire a painter. Start by going to a local paint store or two and asking them who has a good reputation and does a good job.

Half wall? A handyman could probably do that, and put up sheetrock (and do some taping), but getting a good final result, with nice texturing and no visible joints, is not all that simple (at least not for us, so we hire people to do drywall, unless it's a garage). So, a handman may or may not be able to do this, depending on skill. I would NOT let anyone try to texture a half wall with those cans of spray texture! If they show up with cans, I would show them the door. Find someone who does drywall for a living. Be flexible so far as scheduling, because you have a small job. We've found multiple drywall people who have been happy to stop by on their way home, after work, or on a weekend, to do small jobs for us (we usually pay cash when they finish the job). But, you have to be flexible and let them come when they have some extra time.

So far as a wood railing, it depends on exactly what kind and how it is assembled. Wherever you buy it from should be able to guide you to people who can put them up. Many flooring people routinely also stain railings.

You just need to start asking around to find people. Get a few bids for each thing. Don't automatically go with the least expensive, go with the people who are licensed and seem knowledgeable and who have a reasonable estimate. Automatically hiring the people with the highest bid is definitely not guaranteed get you a quality job.

I appreciate everyone chiming in on this. I ended up hiring a GC even though the job is small. Here are the reasons: I was given a reference by someone I trust. This is just the start of updates I want to do but pacing it out for budget reasons. Eventually I plan to update the kitchen, the patio/yard and a possible addition down the road. I needed help with planning for the long term and working with the budget that I have now. Finally, I am as time-starved as it gets balancing between settling into a cross-country move with my kids, getting them setup for school while holding down a demanding job. I also have a small window of 4-5 days between closing on the house and the movers arriving, so having someone coordinating everything is really helpful. Will I end up paying more than if I just hired the subs myself? Most likely, but it's a lot less stressful and that makes it really worth it for me.

I'm so glad I went with the GC who suggested I paint the trim and the ceiling as well. He worked with me on my budget and to keep costs down his crew cleaned the hardwood floor under the carpet really well rather than refinishing the floor. I chose to forego the half wall since that would be easier to do down the road rather than painting all the trim later. Plus they were in and out of there in a few days.

Overall I got some great advice and I love the outcome - it doesn't even look like the same house!

The floors look great! Amazing what the right flooring guys can accomplish for sure.