Most often it’s probably best that you have a professional do the exterior painting of your home, however, Tex Painting understand that if you are trying to save money that you would want to do it yourself. So, if you feel confident enough to do it yourself, then we’d like to offer you a guideline of what you need to do in order to prepare your home for it’s face lift. We want you to succeed and make your home look great and increase it’s value, so if you follow these suggestions, you should end up with a job you’ll be proud of.
Pressure Wash the Outside
To make sure that you get the best paint coverage, you’ll need to remove all the dirt and dust that builds up. The easiest and best way to do this is to use a pressure washer. If you don’t own one, you’ll want to rent one and should be able to find one that’s not overly expensive.
When you do the pressure washing, it’s best to work your way from the top to the bottom of your home in a controlled and smooth fashion. Make sure to overlap each stroke by about eight inches.
Make Any Needed Repairs
After you’ve done your pressure washing take note of any damage you may have seen to the walls of the home. If it’s damage that you can repair, feel free to do so. If it’s damage that you feel is beyond your skill set then consider hiring a professional or a local handyman. If you find cracks and holes you should take some epoxy filler to fill these in by using a Spackle knife. After it’s dry, lightly sand it using a medium grit sand paper with a sanding block or a hand sander.
Remove Lose or Flaking Paint
After your house is totally dry and you’ve made repairs, you’ll want to take a walk around your home to see if there’s any loose or flaking paint. If you find patches of it, you’ll want to put a drop cloth on the ground in these areas and take a paint scraper or some medium grit sandpaper and remove the flaking paint. This is going to help the new paint stick a lot better and look much more professional.
Do Any Caulking Needed
Again, walk around your home and find any gaps there might be between your home and trim around doors, windows and other areas where there shouldn’t be any spaces. Use exterior caulk and a caulk gun to fill in any gaps that you come across. If your house has a mixture of materials such as brick and siding, add the caulk along the surface where there the different materials meet.
Prime Any Stains
If you look closely at your home and find stains that you can’t remove you should make sure that you apply a coat of stain-blocking primer to these troubled areas by using a paintbrush.
Make Sure to Protect Windows, Lights, and Doors
You will want to make sure that you protect such things as lights, doors and windows by using some plastic sheeting and securing the plastic over and around these areas with some painter’s tape to secure the plastic in place.
Trim Your Landscaping
You want to make sure that you have plenty of room when you are painting your home. This means that if you have trees, flowers, and bushes up close to your home that you trim these plants back. You don’t want to have to be fighting these plants while painting. You also want to make sure that none of the plants will be brushing up against your wet walls and damaging the hard work of your paint job.
You may also want to cover some of your plants with the same plastic you used for the doors, windows, and lights to protect them from any paint splatter or spills.
Time to Paint
Once you’ve finished doing all of the prep work then you’re ready to paint. The best thing you can use to get the job done efficiently and professionally is to use a paint sprayer. Depending on the intensity of the color of paint you should apply one or two coats of the paint to your entire home. Make sure to work your way from top to bottom in a controlled and smooth manner, the same way you pressure washed in the beginning. You should again make sure to overlap each stroke by about eight inches.
Painting Doors, Windows, and Trim
Once your house is dry, and you should wait at least 24 hours, you can remove all of the plastic from your trim, lights, windows, and doors. Now you will want to use exterior semi-gloss paint to paint the trim, doors, and windows. It’s best to use a paintbrush and apply two coats.