You will run across a time when the outside of your home needsly needs to be painted. You can choose to call a professional from a painting company to the job for you, or you can paint the exterior of your home by yourself.

You need to understand if you decide to paint the outside of your home, that this will not be an easy task to complete. The average time frame for painting the exterior of a house is normally around 60 hours. Of course if you have someone helping you with the task you can have it completed in a shorter time span.

You will need to make sure that you have the proper materials to paint the outside of your house with. You will need the color of paint you desire, a paint brush, and a roller with an extender on it, a 5-gallon bucket, an extension ladder, and a mini-roller.

Every home repair job starts with preparing the area you wish to fix. You need to begin by scrapping the existing layer of paint off of your home. No one wants to have old paint scrapings on a fresh coat of paint. You can use an industrial paint scraper to scrape off all the chipping paint so you can ensure a flush finish once you apply your new fresh coat.

Then you can apply your base coat, which will act like a primer for the paint. People normally apply a lighter base coat then the color they have chosen to paint their home with. This ensures the base color does not leak out onto the primary color that you have in mind. A nice white base coat is good to go under any color of paint you may be using.

After you have applied your base coat to the whole home, you want to grab your caulk gun and start applying a clear or white caulk to any cracks or imperfections that you may run across on your home. Be sure to caulk around all window sills and door jams. This will eliminate any warm breezes from coming into your home. The caulk is used as a sealant in this type of atmosphere.

After you have completed caulking up the whole house, you have now prepped the house accordingly and can begin painting. Always start at the top of the home and work your way down. If you do not have a ladder that will allow you to reach the top of your home for this decorative painting, you may need to purchase one.

Make sure that you have a paint bucket close by when you are painting so you do not have to consistently climb up and down the ladder. Doing so will waste more time when you could have been painting. Make sure you fill a small paint bucket that you can carry up the ladder with you to make your job a little bit easier.

After your house is painted, you may choose to apply a top coat to protect the paint you have applied, you can purchase a top coat to apply to the paint anywhere. Topcoats protect your paint job against any harsh weather conditions that may destroy the appearance of the home, causing you to have to paint it again.

Article originally published at Source by Chris Almeida