Your house is an extension of your person. It shares your personality, your style, and your standards. The first thing people notice about a house is its color. What that color is doesn’t really matter; it can be vibrant, understated, unusual, or plain old normal. What really matters is that your house’s color sticks around. When you decide it’s time for your house to get another coat of blue or grey chalk paint, follow this brief guide to make sure that your paint will last the seasons and stay looking just as good as the day you picked up your brush.
When?
When you paint your home’s exterior is important. Try to paint in the summer on a semi-cloudy day, with as little wind as possible. You want a moderate temperature with plenty of daylight to work by. If the day is overcast, perfect! Direct sunlight will cause the paint to dry too quickly, and if it dries too fast it can’t bind to your home’s exterior.
If it’s too cold the paint will thicken and clump together and you’ll have a hard time getting it to coat well. If it’s too hot, the paint will run and you’ll also have a hard time getting it to coat well. Painting your house is very much a goldilocks situation, so watch the forecast and try to time the process as well as you can.
After you put that first coat on, give it a few days to really settle and bind with the wood, then get out your lacquer sprayer and give your house a coat of lacquer. This will bring out the texture of your home’s exterior, as well as protect it from the elements. If you have limited lacquer, focus your efforts on the south-facing side of the house, as well as whichever side receives the most wind. It pays to be aeronautical when dealing with exterior paint because you’re basically defending yourself against the weather.
Where?
It’s time for an astronomy lesson. Get your compass out, either a real one or the one on your phone, and figure out which side of your house faces south. It might not be perfect, just try to figure out which side or sides faces the south the most. Assuming you’re living in the northern hemisphere, this is the side of your house that will receive the most sunlight throughout the year. It’s important that you identify this before painting because this is the side of the house that will need some extra work to make the paint last longer.
Paint fades from exposure to UV radiation and the more hours of sunlight the more hours of radiation exposure. In order to combat this, we recommend adding an extra coat of paint on the south side of your house, as well as a UV lacquer for additional protection. Do this and you’ll drastically increase the lifespan of your home’s exterior paint.
You’ll also want to concentrate more attention on areas of your home’s exterior where water can pool up. Think flat areas like ledges, window sills, banisters on your porch or deck, those sorts of places. A good layer of lacquer will protect the paint there from the inevitable water left over from the rain and snow.
How?
There’s a fast way to paint your house, and then there’s the right way. Choose the right way. Before anything, make sure the exterior of your house is as clean as can be. Powerwash the walls. Spray everything down, sponge it and brush it if you have to.
Every single bit of dirt, dust and grime will be captured by the paint. We know you’re working outside, and that it’s going to get dirty inevitably. So just do your best to mitigate contamination by at least starting with a clean exterior.
No matter what you do, painting your home is going to take a while, so settle in for the long haul and try to get as much done well as you can in one day. The paint might dry fast enough, but it will take longer to bind with the surface, so always try to give it two days before applying lacquer or varnish.
For the lacquer, mix it up well with some water, with a starting ratio of about ten parts lacquer and one part water. With the lacquer mixed up, get your spray gun ready and put a mask on. You’ll want to use a high-quality particle mask, something more substantial than a surgical mask at least, otherwise, you’ll breathe in the lacquer in the air.
With your mask on, spray the side of your house in overlapping bands of lacquer to ensure complete coverage. This will probably take more time than the actual painting but will give you several more years of having fresh-looking, vibrant paint.
With What?
You need paint! Lots of paint. You can use chalk paint for all your exterior work, but you’ll need more than a tin or two. Along with chalk paint, a healthy amount of varnish is always appreciated when working with wooden exteriors, and as we mentioned previously, lacquer is your best defense against the elements. The color of the paint you use is also very important. Earth tones will last longer, but that might not be what you’re looking for in your house. No matter what you do, the paint will fade. So when you set out to repaint your home, consider which color you’d still enjoy seeing even when it’s faded.
