Local Exterior Project: How to Prepare Your Exterior For Painters
When you hire a painter to paint your home’s exterior, you might think there is nothing left for you to do apart from booking the project. That is not the case though! The more non-paint related things you can do to prepare your home and save your painter time, the more you do to save yourself money! If you have an exterior paint project coming up soon; here are some helpful things you can do to get your home ready for the painter!
Prepare Before The Pressure Wash
Mow Lawn and Trim Plants
When you book an exterior paint project, your home will be scheduled for a pressure wash. Before the painter comes to pressure wash your house, mow your grass and trim any plants that are touching your walls. The painter needs about 18 inches of space between the wall and the leaves.
Move Patio Furniture and Decorations
Move lawn ornaments and patio furniture away from the house. Things like barbeques, picnic tables, wall hangings and frog figurines in your plant bed should all be taken well out of range. Any woodpiles or garbage bins also need to be moved. If you need help moving larger pieces of outdoor furniture, make sure you talk with your painter about it beforehand!
Close All Windows
Don’t forget this one! You definitely want to have all your doors and windows closed before the pressure washing begins! If you find that any of your windows leak even though they are closed, make sure you tell the painter. This way they can add caulking to those places to prevent water damage in the future.
Prepare Before Painting
Cars and Campers
Make sure you park your cars, campers, boats etc out in the road or inside your garage! The outdoors has a breeze sometimes. Even paint aimed carefully at your home can sometimes be blown a few feet over onto your car in the driveway! It is best if you can have all these moved the night before the painter arrives. This saves time in the morning and the painter can park in an efficient place with their tools. Bonus- you do not have to run around in your robe while you park vehicles all over the street! 😉
Sprinklers
This is another one you will want to turn off the night before! You want your home to be dry in the morning for the paint to adhere properly. And you definitely do not want the sprinkler to turn on mid paint job! On a hot day it might be refreshing for the painter…but it will not help your project get completed any sooner. 😉
That pretty much sums it up! If your dog is like my dog, they will instantly find a freshly painted wall and go lay against it…so you probably want to keep them inside too! 😉
To book an estimate with Sir Paints A Lot, click here! If your paint project is for your interior and you’d like to know how to prepare for that, check out this blog!
Ahhh. The anticipation of peeling off masking tape to see crisp, clean paint lines…. Only to discover that the paint has leaked through, the lines are squiggled, and the tape is stuck… in some places… Below I will share some dos and don’ts that may just help you avoid this messy fate!
First things first! There are several different colors and varieties of painting tape or masking tape. I’ll just go over the reason for this and which tape to use where!
White Tape: White tape is just your basic masking tape and it is commonly used to hang plastic or paper up around window sills or trim. It works well in most painting situations and can be found in different widths. It is not as highly recommended as blue; but it is much cheaper and works well in all the same situations.
Blue Tape: Blue painter’s tape has medium adhesion and is practical for using on slightly more delicate surfaces that you don’t want to risk damaging. For example; You are painting a kitchen and need to mask off the cabinets which have been painted in the past. Blue tape is less likely to pull up the old paint. If that were to happen; then you would need to repaint the cabinets too. Not a fun add-on if you were not planning on it! Go with Purple if you’re really cautious.
Green Tape: Green painter’s tape has very strong adhesion and is the best choice if you are relying on tape to get crisp, straight lines with no bleeding; especially if the surface you are applying it too is a little rough. It can pull up the material underneath, though; so use with discretion.
Orange Tape: Orange Tape is Basically white tape but stronger. The adhesion level is the same but the strength of the tape (how easily it tears or rips) is a little more heavy duty.
Yellow Tape: Yellow tape has strong adhesion that works excellent outdoors. It is waterproof and works great on exterior windows because it will not leave any residue which would later collect dust. Nobody likes dirty windows…
Now here are some tips for How to use masking tape; How to not to; and a few bonus tips at the end!
DO
Clean the surface you will be masking first. Your tape won’t stick to dust….well, scratch that, it will! Dust won’t keep your tape stuck to the wall though!
Apply your masking as straight and smooth as you can. Avoid using multiple pieces of tape for the same stretch of masking. A tiny bit of uneven overlap will show!
Be sure to press down on your tape as you go. This seems like a given; but it can be easy to get moving along a trim board or other lengthy surface and forget to press your tape down the whole way.
Allow 2nd coat of paint to dry before removing masking. You want your paint to Just be dry to the touch so that you cannot accidentally smudge it as you roll up your masking.
Stick in in the trash. Even obvious things can be forgotten. 😉
Sir Paints Crew putting that green and orange masking tape to good use! Can’t forget the coffee…;)
DON’T
Drown the masking tape with a super heavy first coat. If you take it easy on the first coat, it will help to seal the tape to the wall and give you a clean line. If you bury tape with too much moisture; it will not remain adhered to the wall. We all know what happens next.
Forget to bolt down free edges of plastic and paper. Wind and even pressure from the paint sprayer will cause these to blow around into your freshly painted surface.
Remove masking after each coat. It is very difficult to match your original line if you decide you want a fresh batch of tape for the 2nd coat. Apply both coats (Or more if necessary) before removing tape.
Leave tape too long. You want the paint to be dry before you remove your masking; but if you let it dry more than 24 hours it is much more likely to pull the paint right off with it. This completely ruins that perfect line. Epic Fail. (Fear not! There is a tip below just in case this is happening!)
Mask around lightbulbs with paper. Some people still use lightbulbs that get hot. Charred accents can be nice sometimes; but that is probably not what you’re going for if you are painting!
Throw all your masking on the floor. Dry paint flakes make a big mess and its better to put them straight into the trash. Sometimes there can even be slightly wet paint still hanging out on the plastic; and that will make an even bigger mess.
BONUS
Get yourself one of these masking tools! It is a serious time saver that helps you get straight lines and also lines up your tape perfectly with either paper or plastic.
Hand Masking Tool
If you have the time and REALLY REALLY want a perfect line; paint a light coat of the color you are hoping to protect against the masking tape’s seam (provided you have it). This will seal the tape with the color behind it, and then you can continue to paint your new color worry free.
The Grande Finale of Tips! When you remove your masking tape; first use a blade to score the edge of the tape so that it doesn’t pull any of the new color off with it. This is especially useful in tight areas like along the inside corners and edges of window trim, or in any circumstance where you find your tape is pulling new paint up with it.
Hopefully these tips make the time you spend masking well worth it! If not; at least you will get practice at cutting in and doing touch up! 😉 Thanks for reading! Have a Great Day! If you would like to see how our team gets all the things masked off; give us a call at 541-600-2025 or click HERE to book an estimate now!!!
