I am a seasoned house painter for 7 years now, mostly serving major cities in AL and nearby states as well. Our company and team cater both residential and commercial establishments, making sure that we get the job done 100% of the time. In addition, I only use high quality paints.
For the exterior of this house, the customer went with SW Gaunlet Grey for the body, and GW Organ white for the trim. There was a large amount of wood rot that needed to be replaced prior to painting. We follow the same process every time we paint the exterior of a house. Since the prep work is key with it comes to exterior house painting, our painters never cut corners so we can deliver the highest quality to our customers.
This customer wanted a quick color change to their exterior from light to dark.
Once again, we provided a custom exterior paint job by painting the trim on each side of the house. We painted the exterior with SW Duration paint and sprayed two coats to give the house proper paint coverage.
We took the exterior of this house from a drab brown, to a beautiful, updated SW Summit Grey. We painted the exterior trim SW Origami White, and finished the custom look with some faux finish garage doors.
As with all of our exterior painting projects, prep is key. You can see in the pictures the amount of caulking we apply to the exterior prior to paint. This is essential prior to painting to properly seal the house and prevent water damage to the exterior. A good exterior painter pays just as much attention to the caulking as he/she does to the painting.
This house in Overland Park, Kansas had stucco exterior walls all the way around the house. With a house like this, you will get some painters that will tell you that you need to use elastomeric paint. Not true. We always use a high-end paint such as Sherwin Williams Duration with great results.
SW Duration should give the exterior of your house 10-12 years of quality protection. One other unique feature of the exterior of this house is that the trim is painted on all sides. This adds a more custom look to the exterior, and also increases the appeal.
Not only was the paint color dated on the exterior of this house, but the trim dated it also. If the exterior of your house looks like this, don’t worry, painting it can bring it to the 21st century.
For the exterior of this house, we used SW Peppercorn for the body, and for the trim we used SW Windfresh White. We added more appeal to the exterior of this house by painting only certain pieces of the exterior trim with SW Windfresh White, and painting the other pieces of the house trim with the body color. Proper placement of color on your house goes a long way in the transformation of the exterior.
While every paint job is different, there is a process that you can follow to get the best results every time you get the paint brush out. Particularly for DIY jobs, it’s important that you have some kind of game plan on how to tackle what’s ahead of you, so sticking to a few key rules can really help you out.
Even professional house painters will stick to a certain set of rules, which not only ensures safety but the quality of the finish too. So next time you’re doing interior or exterior painting at home, make sure you remember the following.
Go for water-based paint
In the old days, lead paint was widely available and we were not aware of some of the dangers that it posed. Today it is not commercial available, however there are still some paints on the market that can be toxic and potentially cause harm to the environment and to your family.
If possible, go for a water-based organic paint. Oil-based alternatives are high in VOCs, which pollute the air and are quite harmful to the environment. These days water-based paints are very user friendly – they dry much quicker and you can get a really great finish too.
Get the right tools
When it comes to painting, tools and equipment are very important. That includes the brush and/or roller, drop sheets, your primer and ladder if necessary. One tip we’d recommend is if you’re using a roller, avoid paint trays as they can result in spillages. Instead go for a roller grid, which is much more stable and user friendly, particularly for bigger jobs. It’s also worth having a few different sized paint brushes to get those hard to reach places. Make sure you’ve got tap handy for taping of trim and ceilings too.
Take time for prep
In many ways, preparation is the most important part of the painting process. You’re never going to be able to get that smooth finish unless the surface of the wall is in the right condition. This not only means cleaning your walls and ceiling, but also ensuring that the surface is smooth and free of any dents or holes that can affect the paint job. Be ready to sand and/or scrape if necessary. This applies to exterior work too.
Stay on the conservative side when it comes to colour
Choosing colours can be a tricky business, especially for DIYers. Simply picking out the colours you like best is one strategy, but it can often result in the room being a little intense and possible uncomfortable; some colours just don’t work well together in practice and clash with your decorative items.
The trick it to not overdo it. As a rule, we’d recommend thinking about how much colour is coming from the walls and ceiling as opposed to other parts of the room. Generally, 60% of the colour should be coming from your walls, 30% from furniture, floors and decorative features, and 10% from art, pillows, curtains and sprinkles of colours around the room.
