Paint A Home Fast Facts, House painting For Homeowners And Homes
Paint A Home Fast Facts, House painting For Homeowners And Homes, is an article for home owners who are about to tackle the arduous task of applying a fresh coat of paint to the exterior of their home. Hopefully some of the tips and tricks that are included will make the job a much faster and much more enjoyable experience.
Homes in need of a new paint job will all vary in the degree of work that is required to prepare the surface for paint. If your house is peeling the existing paint, then scraping is necessary or the new paint will not stay on the house. A good surface free of old chipping paint and dirt must be obtained prior to applying any top coat.
Scrapers are available with four sides to each blade and size matters. Use a scraper that corresponds with the size of the clapboards on your home. If you have shake then the bigger the better although you will need a small one in your pocket to get those intricate detailed spots. Make sure you remove any loose paint chips and get all the dirt off while your there. Remember we are trying to minimize travel to maximize time savings.
One of the hardest part of any paint job is staging the house. If your using a ladder then you are going to be there a long time. I like to use two ladders of sufficient hight to reach the top of the house. Then I have two ladder brackets that hook to the ladders and hold a walking plank at whatever level I set it at. I try to use a 12 ft plank because it's easier for one person to handle.
Starting at one corner, I like to work from the top left corner of the house across to the right side. Then I will lower the staging to the next jump and go from left to right again. I repeat this until I have finished this jump from the top of the house to the ground and I have found that by using this technique I have minimized the amount of traveling I'm doing as I proceed with the job.
When the entire jump is complete I then move my staging to the right and do it all over again. If you complete this process around the entire house, before you know it you'll be back where yo started and finished. Single story houses can be painted in their entirety in one day if you really get into a rhythm. You have to eliminate all the walking on the job that's where we waste our hard work.
My next tip is to perform all tasks in one shot. In other words you should be scraping, then priming anything that comes to bare wood then caulk any cracks. After that you apply your body paint to that jump. Then when thats done you pick up your trim paint and you paint the trim for that jump. Now this jump is done forever, or until the next paint job and when you move on you're done with that area. Going back and forth all over the house is where most people will loose all their time.
When I'm preparing to paint a house there are a few things I do that make the job a whole lot easier. First of all my body paint is in a five gallon bucket. I have a good roller that hangs on a screen I place in the bucket. These screens are available in any paint store. Then I have a nice 3 inch angled brush which I screw a long sheet rock screw into the handle, so I can hang the brush on the same bucket for easy access.
When I paint the body part of my jump, I roll out a three by four ft. area and then hang my roller in the bucket. I then take my angle brush and I back brush what I just rolled out. After this I move to the right and do the next jump. When this is complete for the length of my staging then I do the trim. Same process from left to right has given the body paint enough time to dry.
My trim paint is in a smaller bucket with another 3 inch angle brush hanging from it's own aftermarket sheet rock screw that holds it out of the paint. So now I have a 5 gallon bucket and a smaller bucket of trim paint, a caulking gun and a scraper. The only other tool I need is a rag in my back pocket and this I use to wipe any body paint I get on the trim away as I go. This helps it to dry before I quickly come back to do the trim.
By using this method to apply the paint to the entire house and by not skipping areas and then having to return to them after, we have saved all the time we can. I have painted many houses and this is the best way as well as the fastest way it can be done.
Paint A Home Fast Facts, House painting For Homeowners And Homes, hopefully has passed on these tips that years of trial and error have produced. Painting a house can be a pain in the elbow, or it can be a pleasant activity on a nice summer day. The choice lies in making it easy.
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Comments
Great article! Excellent info - makes a seemingly impossible job for one person somewhat smaller. Thank you!
Your welcome and be careful if your up in the air.
Make it pretty!!!
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