Most Common Mistakes when Painting Your House

As the days get longer and the sun gets warmer, I know many of you are planning to break out the brushes & rollers to put a fresh coat of color on your most important investment: your house. Painting isn't just an aesthetic enhancement, it will do more to prolong the life of any surface that is in contact with the weather than anything you can do. With an economy like this, painting is one of the many jobs that people are going to switch over to the do it yourself column, but not many will make that switch well. I've even found that many professional painters ignore the fundamental A-Z steps it takes to properly coat siding, and other surfaces. Here is a list of the most common mistakes people make when painting their house.

5. Choose the right paint

With a thousand possible combinations of bases, finishes, and colors, matching up the perfect mix seems daunting. The easiest base to deal with, and the most versatile is latex. It can be cleaned up with warm water, is non-toxic & affordable. However the most important consideration is what kind of base is currently on the walls. If you are painting over oil based paint, you will need to put down a coat of oil based primer before you put a coat of the latex on. I would recommend a semi-transparent oil based stain if you want a transparent stain over a wood or faux log finish, or even a long lasting protective stain for a porch made out of treated lumber. Always use a white china bristle brush when you use oil paints. As for the finish, most all experts recommend a satin base, as it offers some gloss without the shiny look of semi-gloss. Sherwin Williams Durations is my exterior latex paint of choice, and will last for 5 years.

4. Prepare your surface

Like I mentioned earlier, painting is an A-Z type business. You start by cleaning, scraping, and sanding. Fill all the cracks with caulk or wood filler, and make sure your surface will show little signs of wear after you get the paint down. Sand all the rough edges around chips & filler to a smooth finish, and wash the surface once again before priming. Always prime dirty spots, discoloration & rusty fasteners with Kilz spray primer. So we clean, scrape, fill cracks, sand, clean again, prime & then paint. No matter how good of a job you do or how many coats of paint you put down, poor preparation can cost you all your work.

3. Correct application

Some people believe that you can bring a bag of brushes & a case or beer to a family gathering and get your house painted in a couple hours. While manpower does help, your work will go much farther if you use the correct application method. Always look into spraying the paint on. An electric airless sprayer can be bought for $300 capable of doing small jobs, and it will put out a quarter of a gallon every minute. While $300 is a lot of money for a tool you will use every 2-3 years at the most, most professionals are going to charge you thousands for a moderate sized house in a decent neighborhood. If you don't have many windows and you have lap siding, I would definitely recommend spraying. If you do decide to use rollers, make sure the nap matches the surface you are painting. Relatively smooth surfaces require a much flatter nap compared to rough surfaces, and will also hold less paint.

2. Kill those bees

You have to admit that going around your house with a ladder is a great opportunity to take care of any bee or wasp nests hanging from your eaves. Buy plenty cans of raid, especially if you are more than 15' off the ground. The last thing you want when you are on the top rung of a ladder is to be chased off by an angry wasp. If you take care of those problems before you get there, you are going to be in a lot better position to put down some paint.

1. Ask your local hardware store

Of course they are going to try to sell you their brand of paint, but you need to realize that the brand is your only choice, what is important is the base, finish & tint. More expensive paint will generally last longer, but after you get to the 25$ per gallon range, it will all get the job done quite nicely. The paint dept at Home Depot, and the guys at Sherwin Williams are trained to know what type of paint you should use in every instance. If their advice is wrong, they will generally replace the faulty product. Sometimes a certain conditioner will allow you to paint in hotter or colder weather. Sometimes a certain base works better in your moist environment. You'll never know if you don't ask, and every individual situation is unique.

If you are terribly averse to heights, or have an extremely large house, you may want to call up a professional. For most homeowners, painting yourself is a good way to pocket the cost of labor, and to add value as well as prolong the life of your home.