How to Prepare Your Home for Painting

If your home in Rancho Cordova has to be refreshed, a fresh coat of exterior paint is a fast, inexpensive way to improve its appearance. So if your house is looking shabby or if you are just ready for a change, consider repainting the outside of your home yourself or enlist a professional painter to do it for you.

Painting a home is a huge project, but it isn’t an unreasonable job for some homeowners. You just need to do your research to know how to prep the exterior surface by scheduling residential pressure washing, as well as what brushes and paints to use.

You can also team up with a professional painter by doing all of the prep work on your own, but then letting their crew come over and do the painting with their best tools, safety equipment and professionally selected paint.

Whichever choice is best for you, you will still need to know how to prepare your home for painting. Here are the most important things to remember.

6 House Painting Preparation Tips

1. Decide which parts to paint, collect the ladders and other necessary safety equipment. If you are planning to do the painting by yourself, you’ll thank yourself later. Having a plan will make the painting go a lot faster once you get started. Gathering your materials beforehand guarantees that once you begin painting, you won’t have to stop and look for needed supplies, meaning that you’ll have to maintain a wet edge the entire time you are painting.
2. Choose the right paint and brushes. The best part of painting your home is deciding the color or color combination. You will also need to choose the right paint finishes for each part of the home. Latex is a lot better than oil-based paint for home exteriors. It’s a lot less messy and much easier to clean up. The flat surfaces require more of a flat, or matte, finish, versus semi-gloss. You’ll need synthetic fiber brushes for latex paint. Rollers and sprayers are also time-saving options.
3. Pressure wash. Finally, it’s time to begin prepping the exterior of the home for its brand new paint! Put time into power washing your home (or hiring a local pressure washing service) to remove any cracked or peeling paint. The extreme pressure water is the best way to remove peeling paint, and it also cleans the outside of your home. Some sections of paint may peel right off as soon as you spray over them. That’s a sure sign that the paint was deteriorating and had to be replaced!
4. Remove peeling paint. Now that the old paint has been loosened, get more of it off with a metal or plastic straight edge, being diligent not to dig into the wood surface. Then sand surfaces for a smooth finish. It isn’t necessary to sand every surface down to the bare wood. Any areas where the paint is still adhered just need to be cleaned and have the edges sanded so the new coat of paint goes on the home smoothly.
5. Prime. Don’t skip the primer! Primer is a very important part of preparation because it conceals any prior paint (especially with dark colors), results in even color for your new coat, and a smoother exterior with minimal imperfections throughout. Let the primer dry according to the directions so that the original layer of paint doesn’t mix with it or produce a rough patch on the surface.
6. Plan to paint in good weather. A professional painter can look at the forecast and find the most opportune day for painting a home. That’s why they’re experts! If you want to do the painting on your own, wait for a day that is somewhere between 75 and 85 degrees, with little humidity. This will lead to the best adhesion.

Why Painting Your Home is a Good Idea

Not only can a new paint job make your home look several years newer, it also adds a layer of protection to the overall structure of your home.

Paint can help prevent pests from eating or clawing into your home’s exterior. It also stops wear and tear from inclement weather. Good quality paint stops wood from rotting and dirt won’t stick to paint the same way it does to bare wood.

Peeling paint is an obvious signal that it is time to be replaced. If your paint is peeling on your home, you really need to go ahead and have it repainted in order to protect the wood surface.

Worn paint really takes a toll on your home’s appearance. If you’re worried about curb appeal, painting your home is one of the easiest things you can do.

Painting is also a good idea if your home doesn’t seem to “fit in” in the neighborhood (but you want it to). If your home’s exterior color makes it stand out too much, or if it is the opposite and you really want it to stand out, a different color can totally change its look.

Hiring a Local Professional Painter in Rancho Cordova

After the prepping is finished, you can turn the job over to a professional painter in Rancho Cordova (if you hadn’t already chosen that from the start!). Hiring a painter is affordable. It also guarantees that the results will exceed your expectations with little effort on your part.

Hiring a local painter to paint your home has several obvious benefits:

• A professional painter knows the optimal way to do the job, which means the paint will look much better and the project will go a lot quicker.
• Pros don’t make a big mess. Their results will be much neater, without excess paint splattered or spilled around home.
• Because of their skill and experience, your new exterior paint will likely last a lot longer than if you painted by yourself.
• A professional painter will already have the safety equipment required to paint surfaces above ground level.

Depending on your DIY skills and desires, you can trust your painter to do all the pre-painting preparation, too. Most companies are prepared to take care of every part of the project, from removing old paint and cleaning the exterior to actually applying the new paint.