In many cases renovation of the house does not involve full reconstruction and complex changes. Sometimes, exterior painting is enough to make your house look more attractive without big investment of time and money.
Before you will start to look for an appropriate painting contractor to arrange the work in the best and easiest manner, it’s important to know some specific features and requirements for this. And this article will help you with it.
Materials to use House painting from outside has a big challenge in regard to different weather conditions, especially if we are talking about the areas with seasonal climate. You as an owner need to make sure that the painting will work perfectly with direct sun, moisture, high and low temperatures etc. Obviously, from time to time you still will be required to do some small touches but at least good-quality and proper materials will help you to avoid extra spending on regular basis. In this regard, professional painting contractors always recommend to give preferences to the oil-based painting. It’s pretty much easy to use and even if you prefer to do the painting by yourself, you can manage the process. This kind of the materials takes less time to dry and it keeps the hard surface for long period of time.Also, if to compare with some other painting materials, oil-based ones are shrinking less which will also provide a better condition to use in changing environment.
How to paint Modern technologies give us a great variety of options, including the way of painting you can use for your house’s exterior.Spraying is becoming more and more popular as it’s a much easier way to cover a big surface. On the other hand, here you can have a risk of overspray, especially if you are not very familiar and skilled. That is why, despite the advertisement of this new method, this is more applicable if you are planning to hire a specialized painting company.More traditional rolling of painting will provide you with thicker layer of the painting, which is especially crucial if we are talking about some light colors like white and beige. Additionally, nowadays you can find a lot of equipment and tools which will help to make the overall process easier and more effective.
Ideal time for painting There are many factors which can influence the success of the exterior painting. And first of all, it’s weather conditions. Obviously, rain and snow can affect drastically fresh painting causing the necessity of doing the job twice. To avoid that, it’s always recommended to arrange the process or at early summer or at early autumn. It’s an ideal time when there is no essential difference between day and night temperature, the sun is not too strong and the possibility of unexpected rain and other precipitation is not that high. Also, this period of time will allow the painting to get dry in more stable conditions which will not affect the quality and uniformity of the layer. Usually, it takes up to 8 hours to make the walls dry after painting, but still you need to consider the necessary time for fixing the color – ideally up to 24 hours.It’s important to mention that you should not plan any painting works if the temperature is below 60 degrees and/or in case of strong winds even in case of some urgent works.
Original base One more essential factor for the commercial painting is the basis you have. If we are talking about brand new house, it hardly will require some special preparations and additional works. The only thing you need to know here is that you need to wait at least 1-2 months after the plastering process before putting new layer of the painting. Oppositely, in case of old houses you will need to be ready to add some extra budget and estimated waiting time. Here is why.
If you want the painting lays in a perfect way, you need to make sure that all the old layers of the painting are erased. There is one very simple method to know if the base is strong and solid enough – you can use an ordinary scotch tape on the surface of the wall. If you will see some pieces of the wall on it when unsticking it from the wall, that means you will need to use tools to delete this part, otherwise new layer of the painting will not cover the wall properly. Even if you think that the surface is solid enough, it’s always recommended to include priming in the preparation process. You can even use the same painting materials for the priming but with mixing them with water (as an additional effect, you will get a more intense and brighter color of the walls).
Another crucial detail is to make sure you delete all the biological affects from the wall before making the refreshment of the exterior. In this regard, it’s not enough just to physically erase mold and moss but also to use the special bioprotective substances. Otherwise you are having risk of keeping some pieces of the moss on the surface which will destroy the new layer of the painting in very short period of time.
Choice of color Modern painting technologies and samples of the materials will provide you with a great opportunity to make the color of your house up to your wishes and taste. And despite the fact that nowadays you can easily find various examples and ideas online and in different magazines, it’s also useful to know some small tints which will help to make your home look even more attractive and comfortable.
Totally, professional designers of the houses’ exteriors are dividing the colors you use into three parts.
- Main color for the walls. As this color will cover most of the surface you need to choose the one which will be convenient for you and which will be in harmony with the overall surroundings. In many cases it’s recommended to adjust the main color to the natural materials you use in the exterior of the house (such as stones, bricks, panels, tiles and others). To make the house painting more practical and acceptable in the daily life, usually people are choosing darker colors as the main theme but this choice is very individual.
- Decorative elements. The exterior arranged in one color will definitely look boring and will not attract attention. Designers recommend to use light colors to put attention to the doors, windows, facing part, cornice and other relatively massive components of the house’ exterior. Also, it’s important to arrange different from the main color for the roof (otherwise the whole building will create image of one big spot).
- Accents. Here is the time for choosing the brightest colors, sometimes even unexpected ones. For example, you can easily make your home look charming and the same time quite audacious while using orange or pink color at some small but crucial elements. The main idea in this case is just to make sure that the combination of the colors is working well, even if the colors themselves are from different segments. Thus, if the main theme is of the cold colors, it doesn’t mean that you cannot add some warm accents, you just need to make sure they match each other.
Recommendations before painting by yourself
The first and the most important advice is not to ignore the necessity of priming. It will not only help to make the surface stronger and harder but also will decrees the water absorbance by the walls. Moreover, that is how you can effectively lower the consumption of the painting itself.
As soon as the layer of priming will get fully dry, you can start the painting process. Despite the fact that the wall will get fully dry within 24 hours, the second layer you can put even before. For more accurate information you can always check the instruction to a specific painting you are using.
If you are planning to do the painting job for the first time, you need to take into account one essential detail – you should not do long pause while painting one wall as it may lead to appearance of the stains and different tints within one surface. That is why it’s better to do more than two layers of the painting than to try to make the intense color within one time. Here we should advise one more additional tint not even all the professional contractors are aware of – if you don’t want to wash the rolling instruments after each usage between different layers you can easily place them inside the plastic bag. That is how the painting will not get dry before the next usage.
These were common recommendations, but nowadays different producers are making different types of paintings which lead to the necessity to acknowledge yourself with the particular instructions. Among the most typical features can be the range of the temperatures when you can use the painting, the hours of making it dry as well as proportions to mix with other components. Also, the conditions of storing the materials can vary within one group of painting so you should also carefully check this information in advance. Otherwise even the most expensive painting will lead to a very sad result.
House painting is not a very difficult process, and if you wish (or if you have not enough budget for hiring external contractor) you can arrange it by yourself. Proper preparation and attention to details is the key to success and to a cozy and comfortable home for you and your family.
