First of all, you have made the right decision to hire professional residential painters to work on your home instead of going at it yourself. No paint job is as easy as it looks; it takes skills and experience to get impressive results.
Another thing you should know about painting is that half the job involves preparation – we never apply a new coat of paint without preparing the surfaces and the house itself. We, of course, deal with all the technical stuff, including masking, wall-filling, scraping and priming, but you can also help out by doing some general prepping. Here are some of the things you can do to ready your house for a paint job.
How you prepare the exterior for painting depends on the condition of the house and its surrounding area. The first thing you may need to do is get a handyman to make any necessary repairs and take care of minor scrapes and bumps. Doing so maintains uniformity since you will not need any touchups once the new paint sets.
Next, trim any hedges, trees and shrubs that are too close to the house, as they could become obstacles for the residential painters. If trimming is not an option, you can try pulling the vegetation away from the house using anchored tethers. Finally, pressure-wash your house to get rid of any dust, debris, mold, and greasy stains and leave it to dry for at least a day. On a side note, consider painting the exterior during summer or spring when the weather is favorably warm.
Make sure that the interior walls to be painted are completely blank. Remove everything that is hanging on these walls, from the family photos and art pieces to mirrors, and put them away safely. Obviously, the painters will not paint around wall hangings; they will have to remove them as they work. So, save the painters some time and inconveniences by doing this beforehand.
Many homeowners often forget to remove curtains and roll up carpets and rugs before a paint job. The floor and wall fixtures can be masked from paint splashes, but carpets, drapes and floor rugs cannot be protected in the same way. So, remove and put them away to avoid damaging their fine fabric and color with paint. What’s more, rugs are potentially dangerous in a paint site because they can easily and suddenly slide over the floor when stepped on.
Residential painters always bring plastic covers to mask big items such as couches and tables. But in most cases, we still need to move some furniture around to get to the walls and ceiling. Before the painters arrive, pull all the furniture to the middle of the room to create ample working space all around the walls. If the room is already tightly packed, you might have to relocate some of the larger pieces of furniture to a different place. Remember, this applies to furniture and any other home accessories, including electrical appliances, kitchen equipment and decorative items obstructing movement in the area to be painted.
It is always a good idea to give the room a thorough cleaning before a paint job. Wash the floor and wipe down the walls a day or two prior to painting. Cleaning gets rid of the dust, dirt and stains that might otherwise tarnish the look and quality of the fresh coat of paint as it dries.
A paint job brings a fresh appeal to your home and revitalizes its look, but quality work typically comes down to all that prepping and the final execution. This is why we take painting preparations seriously here at Fox Painting, a professional residential and commercial painting company based in Orange County. We have been in business since 2010, and we pride ourselves on offering quality painting services at affordable prices. Connect with us today and get expert residential painters at your doorstep.
