Preparation is Key for Your Residential Painting Project

May 13, 2016

Whether you do the prep work yourself or you leave it to the professionals at Norby Painting, you want to be educated about the residential painting project your home receives. With this in mind, we share these tips for preparing for your home’s new residential painting.

Prepare Your Home’s Interior for Residential Painting

Whether we are painting one room or the entire interior of your home, pre-painting preparation is the key to a successful residential painting project.

  1. Carefully inspect walls to find rough, peeling or chipped paint, loose or rusted nails, holes or cracks. Move all furniture and framed art from the walls, take down window treatments and hardware, loosen light fixtures and wrap in plastic, remove all socket and switch plates. Cover all furniture and floors with drop cloths.
  2. Hammer in loose nails and replace rusted ones, patch small holes and repair large ones, repair cracked plaster. Sand any rough areas so your residential painting will be smooth.
  3. Use painter’s tape to ensure straight lines and no paint bleeds where one color starts and another color or surface starts. Don’t leave the tape on until the paint is dry – just wait 30 minutes for latex paint and two or three hours for oil-based paint.

Your room or rooms are now ready for a beautiful job of residential painting.

Prepare Your Home’s Exterior for Residential Painting

Preparing your home’s exterior for painting is the most important step to ensure a top-quality residential painting job.

  1. Remove all loose paint. Hand scraping is the most efficient method. If you choose power washing, too much pressure can mar wood and loosen mortar. Also, water can seep into the wall, so time must be allowed for complete drying. And, some loose paint will be left requiring hand scraping those areas.
  2. After surface is completely dry, use a putty knife to lift and scrape loose paint. Use the corner of the putty knife to chip off as much old paint as possible.
  3. When all loose paint is off, fill cracks and holes with filler. Replace any areas that need it, and sand all surfaces.
  4. Remove window screens, storm doors and anything that will not be painted. Wash the house with a power washer, working from the top down and rinsing completely.
  5. Attack any mildew with bleach and let the house dry, waiting at least one day. Caulk gaps around windows and doors, molding, etc., and hammer in any nails that are sticking out.

Now your house is ready for residential painting that will be beautiful for many years.

Whether you need the interior rooms of your home freshened for the season or the exterior spruced up to increase curb appeal, just click on the online “Request A Quote” button or call us directly at 704-907-5555. We will schedule a free consultation to discuss your residential painting project.