Painting your home’s exterior is not quite the same as painting a room within your home. First of all, everyone is going to see the paintjob. It’s also going to be exposed to weather elements and an outdoor environment. Therefore, you need to pick a brand of paint that can handle those conditions without chipping or cracking. You’ll also want paint that can handle bright sunlight without fading or yellowing.
If you haven’t ever painted your home’s exterior before, here are some useful tips to help you get started. By following these, you’ll increase your chances of success and complete a paintjob on a home that you will be proud to call your own.
Always Choose the Best Paint
If you’re going to budget your home remodeling job, one area in which you cannot afford to cut corners is when it comes to the paint. While choosing to buy cheaper paint may work for your home’s interior, for the exterior, as mentioned above, using cheap paint can cause chips or cracks that will require you to patch up. Besides, cheaper paints cannot handle sunlight or various weather conditions. For the best quality color that will last you for years to come, invest in some pricier paint that promises protection from weather elements and sunlight fading.
Preserving Paint
Painting your home’s exterior is a long process that will require plenty of time and patience to allow the paint to fully dry. However, while that’s happening, take care of the paint still in the cans that you have ready for the next coat. Instead of attempting to reapply the metal lid, which may not ever fully go back into place, you can use an inexpensive household object to preserve paint color and texture: plastic wrap. Cover the entire top of the paint can with plastic wrap, pulling it airtight. Now put on the lid on. Flip the paint can over to tighten the seal that the plastic wrap creates.
Box Your Paint
The term boxing simply means that you take various paint cans and pour them together into a larger storage vessel or container. This makes it a lot easier to keep track of your paint. Of course, the cans of paint must be the exact same color in order for boxing to be successful. By blending two or more cans of paint into one container, you actually remove any minute color discrepancies between one can of paint and the other.
Don’t Forget the Primer
Just like you use a primer before painting the inside of your house, you should also apply it to your home’s exterior. Primer, just like it does for the home’s interior, helps the color stick better and look better. Don’t just use any primer though. The DIY Network suggests oil primer for outdoor paintjobs. You should also use acrylic or latex over the primer for the best quality paintjob.
Paint This Way
With a wall in your home, it’s pretty easy to know where to start the paintjob. However, when painting your home’s exterior, you may feel confused and afraid to start painting wrong. Just like you would if you were painting the interior of your home, start painting from the top of your home’s exterior and move downward as you go along. If paint drips downward during the process of drying, you can fix it while painting that portion later. You’ll also keep streaks away, which can be unsightly and ruin an otherwise great paintjob.
Watch When You Paint
When painting the inside of your home, you can do it almost any time of the year. However, outdoor exterior painting means that you must watch the weather. Both sunlight and humidity can negatively affect how your paintjob will turn out. You should try to paint on days where the temperatures reach about 75 degrees Fahrenheit and the humidity only 50 percent. Too much humidity means that your paint is more likely to yellow and fade over time. That means that summertime painting is probably not the best idea. You’re better off painting in the spring or the autumn.
However, if you do paint in the autumn, you have to be aware of how much sunlight that you have on any given day. As the sun sets earlier during the autumn months, you have less time for the sunlight to naturally dry your paint. Once night arrives, your paint becomes much more likely to succumb to icy moisture, which will create bumps and blotches on your paintjob. Generally, it’s best to paint between 10 o’ clock in the morning until three o’ clock in the afternoon so you get optimal amounts of sunlight.
