Before painting your outside, there are three things you should do.

Before painting your outside, there are three things you should do.

CLEANING

One of the most underrated aspects of any paint job, particularly for exterior work, is cleaning. The outside of your home collects all kinds of different materials, whether it is a build-up of dust and dirt, grime or even moss in some cases.  It’s essential to rid the exterior of all of these materials prior to painting. Painting on even a slightly unclean surface is ultimately going to be a waste of your time and hard work. That’s why cleaning is necessary before painting. The first step is simply to take to your house exterior with a sponge and some warm soapy water, scrubbing to remove that dirt and grime. It is important to note that access to a high-pressure cleaner will yield the best results. Cleaning well before painting the exterior walls of your house will allow better looking and more durable results.

Prep work or scraping the loose paint off

This is particularly important if you’re repainting a surface that is in bad condition. If your surface is in bad shape with cracks and holes, using body filler is a good idea. Painting an uneven surface will yield inconsistent and bad looking results. If it’s fairly smooth and without too much peeling or cracking, it’s worth giving the surface light sand. This effectively balances out the wall, allowing your paintbrush to glide down it and apply paint easily. Surfaces in worse shape may have holes and cracks here and there. That’s why you’ll need to use a body filler to fill in those gaps and again, create as much of a consistent surface as possible. This involves filling gaps and cracks in order to ensure that the surface you are about to paint is in the best shape it can be.

A primer coat

When it comes to any paint job, Priming is highly recommend for nearly all paint jobs and even more so if you’re going with a new color. When it comes to exterior surfaces such as timber, they can provide the adhesion level required for the paint to spread evenly. . If you forget to prime when painting your exterior walls, you risk ending up with unattractive and patchy looking paintwork. If you’re painting over another color, you may see this shade through the new color unless you add at least a couple of primer coats. Different specialty primers are available for timber, concrete, plaster or metal for example, so make sure you use one that is specifically formulated for the kind of surface you’re working with.