Painting the Exterior of Your Home to Accentuate the Positive
Are you looking for a way to improve the look of your home and make a lasting impression but you are not ready to commit to a big project? There’s a great and inexpensive way you can accomplish this. All you need is to do is add a little color to the exterior of your home. Touching up the shutters, doors, trim and other parts of your home will make your home more attractive and maybe even increase your property value.
Touching up the paint on doors, windows, shutters, garage doors, fences and other parts of the exterior of your home will also prolong the life of these items. This helps them withstand the (sometimes extreme) weather of Connecticut a little longer and will save you money over the long term.
Begin With Colors You Can’t Change
When touching up your home’s exterior painting, first consider the colors outside your home that cannot be changed, for example, the bricks and stones around your home. These are parts of your home that cannot be changed so think about a color scheme that will go with them. The colors you choose should accentuate the stone or brick.
Prepping the Surface
Before painting the exterior of your home, whether it’s the door, awning or shutters, you have to clean the surface. Remove any grime, dirt, mildew and chalky residue. The easiest way to do this is to power wash your home. If for some reason power washing is not an option you can hand scrub using a bristle brush. Once you’ve cleaned all the surfaces you should hammer any nails that are above the surface.
As long as the surface’s paint is still in good condition you can paint over it. If there are parts where the old paint has flaked off or blistered, make sure to scrape and/or sand the surface smooth. If there’s bare wood, you have to prime it before you paint it. Once the surface that you are updating with fresh paint is prepared you can paint it.
Applying the Paint
The most efficient and effective way to apply paint to the exterior of your home is with rollers and paintbrush. Use the paintbrush for painting the narrow surfaces, smaller areas, and edges. For the long and larger surfaces like the trim and sliding, use a small diameter roller for easy blending and application of the paint. When painting the exterior, start in the house’s shady part as painting a surface in direct sunlight will make the paint dry too quickly.
Painting in direct sunlight will cause the paint to not adhere well. In the end, the paint will blister and flake faster than it should. Once you are done painting the parts of the house not in direct sunlight move to the spots that have not been completed yet. The sun should have moved and these parts of the house should no longer be in direct sunlight. If all else fails you can wait until there is an overcast day and paint the parts of the house that are in the path of direct sunlight. When painting, make sure to start at the top and work your way down.
If you are going to paint any large areas of the exterior of your home that includes siding you should start with the bottom edge of the siding and work your way to broad surfaces. Painting should be done from wet spot to wet spot to give it a seamless look but if you must paint over a dried surface it is best to apply extra paint.
Painting your homes accessories will help your home stand out without committing to a large project. While you can accomplish this on your own keep in mind that you will likely need a ladder, time and equipment. If going up a ladder doesn’t appeal to you or you don’t have the time or equipment it is best to hire a professional painter. A professional painter in Connecticut will know how to get it done to your liking while being efficient. This of course would be our recommendation.