5 Essential Steps for Preparing Your Home for Exterior Painting
Whether hiring exterior painting professionals to give your house a fresh new coat of paint or doing it yourself, a quality painting project requires careful preparation.
Taking or failing to take the essential steps for preparing your home for exterior painting can make or break the finished product. For instance, paint applied to a dirty or damaged surface will flake, bubble, and blister, which is likely not what you want.
Continue reading this article to learn how to prepare your home for exterior painting.
5 Steps for Preparing Your Home for Exterior Painting
- Clean the surface
As your home goes through the rigors of daily living, it takes a beating from wind, rain, and sun, eventually leading to a deteriorating surface. A fresh coat of paint is a good way to restore the appearance of your house’s exterior.
However, you shouldn’t apply a new coat of paint on an unclean surface. Dirty surfaces are less appealing and can interfere with the drying process, extending the time it takes to complete a painting job.
The first essential step for preparing your home for exterior painting is to clean the surface to ensure that the new paint adheres and stays put. Cleaning the surface before painting will also allow the paint to last longer, which is a major benefit if you want to avoid frequent repainting.
To prepare your home for exterior painting, you can clean the external walls using a pressure washer and a light detergent like Trisodium Phosphate (TSP). You could also use a sponge and warm water to remove dust, filth, and cobwebs.
While cleaning, remember to wear a mask to protect yourself from the fumes and dust.
- Sand or scrape the surface
The next essential steps for preparing your home for exterior painting are scraping and sanding the surface. Use a hand scraper or a power sander to remove loose, flaking, or peeling paint.
You can do the sanding and scraping yourself or hire professionals who offer exterior painting in Burlington to do the job.
Sanding the exterior of your home is a critical step for a long-lasting exterior painting job. It will remove imperfections so the surface is smooth and even, which ensures that the new coat of paint adheres to the underlying surface.
- Repair cracks and holes
Once you’ve removed loose paint and washed the surface, examine it for cracks, nicks, and chips.
Prepare your home for exterior painting by making any necessary repairs to the areas that may have damage from weather wear and tear or animal activity.
- Patch the cracks and holes using a filler, such as an exterior-grade patching compound. Look for a product that is both waterproof and rot-resistant.
- Cover the cracked regions with a thin layer of joint compound and smoothen it.
- Use a putty knife to remove any leftover joint compound and loose tape from the vicinity of a cracked wall.
- Before painting, let the compound dry.
- If your home has contrasting materials, such as brick on one side and siding on the other, add caulking to the area where these materials meet.
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- Cover the surrounding things
Just as you would not want interior paint to drip on your floor, you should also take precautions when painting the exterior of your home. You should cover anything you don’t intend to paint. So,
- With a notebook and tape measure in hand, start by walking around your house to map out the areas that need painting.
- Put down plastic sheets or a canvas designed for this purpose over any areas you don’t want to be painted, such as walkways, bushes, and brickwork.
- Use drop cloths or canvas paper (both will work) over windows, doors, and floors to protect them from paint spills.
- Remove furniture from around the walls of your house and cover it to protect it, and tape over windows and doors.
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- Time it right
A pristinely painted home looks stunning in a design magazine, but it’s more challenging to achieve than you may think. It takes time, patience, and the right preparation steps for home exterior painting.
The good news is that the results are worth it – a quality exterior paint job will last a long time, save you money on future repairs, and increase the value of your home.
If you want the best results, one of the important steps for preparing your home for exterior painting is to ensure you do it at the right time. It’s best to start this project in the fall when it’s not too cool but not too hot either. If it’s too cool, the latex paint won’t cure properly.
Uncured paint may blister due to rain or humidity, which might undo your hard work. So try to make repairs and paint your home’s exterior while the weather is dry and above 50 degrees Fahrenheit.
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Final Words
And there you have them! The above are the essential steps for preparing your home for exterior painting.
Proper prep work before painting your house’s exteriors will help you avoid mistakes, improve the aesthetics of your home, protect other valuable items in your home, and add value to your property.
This is a contributed post.
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