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Painting the exterior of a house can be a large project
depending on how big your house is and also if your walls
need to be painted or not. So you will need to work out how
you are going to tackle painting the exterior of your house
and this could depend on how much time you have, you maybe
painting on the weekends or it could be your project during
your holidays.
Having a starting point is a good idea,
most will start the front of their house first and some
times this can leed to the sides and back being forgotten.
Its nice to have the front of your house looking good so I
do understand why people like to start there but if its your
first time painting then I would suggest you start on one of
the sides. Choose a side that is not seen or has less
traffic, the reason for this is because if it is your first
time painting you will make mistakes and these mistakes are
best made were no one can see them. You will learn from your
mistakes and your painting skills will improve so its best
to leave the front of your house to last for this reason.
Firstly you will
need to wash the exterior of the house, making sure you wash
all painted surfaces. If surfaces are not clean then the paint is
not going to stick, this is one of the most important
steps in preparing a house for painting. I normally use a soft bristle broom,
a bucket of water with detergent in it and a hose to clean the outside down, you can use a
pressure cleaner but I find its just as easy this way. I start by
wetting the surface down then dip the broom into the bucket
of water then scrub the surface. Its generally
not to hard to do and once you have scrub it just rinse off
with the hose, to clean the exterior of an average house takes about 2 hour for 2
people.
Next you will need
to is start you prep work and it will depend on how bad the existing paint is,
for paint work in really bad
condition you may need to burn off all the existing paint.
For paint work in good condition all that maybe required is
a light sand.
Generally starting from the top and working your way down
but it doesn’t matter if you start window or walls first. If you have
windows in bad condition you may want to start these first
as they can take some time to prepare and its good to do the
hardest parts first, then every thing will get easier from
that point.
All surface will need to be sanded, either to smooth out
the existing surface or just for adhesion purposes. There is
a term "feathering an edge" and its when there has been a
bubble or peeling paint that has been scraped back
leaving a raised paint edge. Feathering the edge is where you
sand the edges back so they are smooth or level so when you
paint they are not noticeable.
Any exposed rusty nail
heads should be punch it and touched up with a metal primer
or simular.
Any areas that have
gone rotten should be fix either by replacing the timber or
digging out the rotten section and filling it with a two
part filler, the fill must be suitable for exterior use. Any large
imperfections should also be filled with a two part filler, there are
other fillers available for small imperfections.
Spot prime any bare timber or surface with suitable primer,
you don't want to leave any broken paint edges exposed too
long as they will start to lift again.
When your sanding has been done then gaps should be
caulked as you don’t want moisture getting into your new
paint work, this is one of the main reasons for paint
breaking down in the first place. There maybe gaps that are
not seen from the ground like above windows, these gaps can
be even more important to fill due to rain. When it rains
water will run down the walls and into any gap it finds and
can start the rotting process so its important to fill gaps
on the exterior of a house.
When it comes to the painting part its best to paint your
eaves first and the reason for this is that the back edge of
the fascia (barge boards) is normally painted eaves colour
and it is ok to get paint on the under edge of the
fascia as you will be painting this later. If you were to do the fascia first then you would
need to be careful when painting the eaves not to get any
paint on the newly painted under edge of the fascia. Also if
you are painting the walls make sure you take the eaves
colour down just a little onto the wall, it will make
cutting in the walls easier.
From here there are a few different choice's.
First coating windows can be done before painting walls,
when painting windows there is a chance you will get some
paint splashes on the walls. At this stage it wont
matter if you do get a few paint spot on the walls and its
nice not to be worrying about damaging your wall paint.
Barge boards, fascia and
gutters can be done before or after walls have been
completed but do remember you will need to be careful if
walls have been final coated. Its advised that you have a
clean rag handy to wipe off any paint splashes that you may
get on the walls.
Walls can be painted at this stage but before you apply
the final coat to the walls I suggest you undercoat the
windows as mentioned.
The final stage is to final coat your windows, doors and
any other trim you may have, just remember to have a clean
rag handy to remove any splashes you may get on the walls.
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