As your home ages, its exterior paint can fade, peel, and flake. These changes can hurt your house’s curb appeal and make you wish it looked better. Here are some tips for touching up your home’s exterior paint job when you decide to improve its visual appeal.
Remove Flaking Paint
Review how often you should touch-up your home’s paint jobs. You may want to touch-up your exteriors every 5 to 10 years. After you have tested to ensure your home’s paint doesn’t contain lead, you can remove areas where the paint is flaking or peeling with a scraper or sandpaper. The removal will help ensure that you have an even, long-lasting result.
Wash Off Your Exterior
It’s also important to wash off the exterior siding. You’ll want to remove any dirt or loose paint residue so that your new coat will adhere well to the surface. Although you might consider washing off the outside with a pressure washer, it’s better to do it with a hose.
Unfortunately, if you don’t have much experience with a pressure washer, you can cause damage to your exterior that includes stripping more paint and tearing window screens. But if you use a hose, you’ll play it safe and have far less to fix later.
Use Your Primer
Another important tip for touching up your home’s exterior paint job is to use primer over the bare wood. When you use the primer, you’re helping create a surface that’ll improve the adhesion of the final paint job. If you skip this step, you can also hurt your finish and end up doing unnecessary work.
Be Careful When Using a Sprayer
When applying the final coat, be careful if you use a paint sprayer. Although these tools can help make your job go faster, ensure that you or the person using them has experience. Otherwise, you may leave drips behind or accidentally send mist onto things you don’t want to get paint on.
With these care tips, you can do a better job of touching up your house’s exterior. You’ll want to make your home look better, so you should do it right.
