You don’t have to fear the spray painter any longer
A fresh coat of paint can transform any home into a brand-new abode. If you’re hoping to avoid some of the labor that comes with painting a home using a roller, spray painting your house’s exterior may be the perfect solution. This tutorial will help you learn how to spray paint your house’s exterior so that your home looks as good as new, all while you spend less time on labor and more time enjoying backyard barbecues.
Properly preparing for exterior paint is key to a DIY exterior paint job that looks like it was done by a pro. Start by covering your windows, doors, garage door, light fixtures, gutters, plants, and anything else that could fall victim to overspray with plastic sheets, tape, or drop cloths.
Some exterior features of a home are better off simply being removed. While you can keep your gutter attached, you must remove downspouts and light fixtures that obstruct the exterior of your home so that the spray paint can cover the entire surface. Use a screwdriver to take down any obstacles. Keep any screws in a plastic bag or small container so they don’t roll away, never to be seen again.
The fastest way to clean a home’s exterior is by soft-washing your home. If you’re painting a brick or wood home, you’ll want to soft wash by using a pressure washer equipped with a low-pressure nozzle and an all-purpose cleaning solution to remove dirt, mildew, and other grime. Add the cleaning solution to the sprayer and spray surfaces according to the manufacturer’s instructions.
If you want to paint your concrete foundation while you’re at it, you can skip the soft wash. Concrete surfaces can handle pressure washing, a more powerful method that doesn’t require a cleaning solution.
With safety glasses and your dust mask on, use a portable sander or a manual paint scraper to remove old paint. If your home was built before 1978, you may need to test it for lead before you remove any old paint. A professional should handle surfaces that contain lead paint.
Now that your home’s surface is free from old paint and dirt, it’s time to fill in or repair cracks, holes, and other blemishes. Caulk the exterior of your home to cover cracks where the siding meets the corner boards, door frames, and window frames. Let the caulk dry before moving on.
If you have bare wood trim, posts, or siding, you’ll want to prime them before applying paint. Apply a smooth coat of primer to the wood with a paint roller. You may need to go in with a paintbrush for any narrow or hard-to-reach areas. Wait for the primer to dry completely before you continue on to the next step.
Hold the airless paint sprayer about 1 foot away from the trim. Ensure the sprayer is parallel to the surface for a level paint job, and then spray in the same direction as the grain. This can mean either an up-and-down or a side-to-side motion.
You’ll want to keep a steady hand to avoid putting too much or too little paint in any one spot. For every pass you make across the surface, release the spray gun before pressing the trigger and repeating the motion.
After you’ve painted the trim and allowed the spray paint to dry completely according to the manufacturer’s instructions, you’ll want to cover your trim to prevent the overspray—particles of paint in the air—from going against the grain while you paint the rest of the house. Tape down plastic sheets over already-painted areas to ensure your trim stays nice and tidy.
Starting at the top of your home’s siding, use the airless sprayer to work your way down the exterior surface carefully. Just as you painted the trim, you’ll want to paint with the grain of the wood for wooden surfaces. If your siding isn’t wooden but has faux wood grain, you’ll still want to follow along in the same direction. You may need to level out any drips using a paintbrush. Allow the paint to dry completely before you apply a second coat, which is crucial for spray paint jobs.
After the second coat of spray paint fully dries, you can remove the drop cloths and plastic sheets and reinstall any hardware on your home’s exterior. How long spray paint takes to dry depends on the type of paint, but it can take up to 8 hours. However, it’s a good idea to wait up to 24 hours before removing sheets and reinstalling hardware just to be sure.
You can save yourself a ton of time by choosing the best exterior paint for your home. Below are some ways to help you pick the right paint.
Beyond choosing your perfect paint color, the ideal exterior paint for houses is an all-in-one paint and primer. This helps save you time and energy you’d otherwise spend applying primer separately from the paint.
However, if the surface has never been painted or you’re covering up a glaringly bright color, you might need to use a primer before you can paint your home’s exterior to get the best result. Otherwise, the old color might peek through, which is the last thing you want if you’re going from a bright pink to a classy greige.
You always want to factor in the type of paint already on your home. If your home’s exterior has an oil-based paint on it, you’ll want to use another oil-based paint on top. On the other hand, if your home has water-based latex paint, stick with latex. Going from one paint type to another would require a lot of extra steps and labor, so save yourself the trouble and choose the same paint base.
Understanding your surface type is important for a successful exterior spray paint project. For example, if you’re painting vinyl siding, you’ll need to choose a paint designed for vinyl siding rather than standard exterior paint, as it’s harder for your run-of-the-mill paint to adhere to vinyl.
Steel siding, stucco siding, and fiber cement siding do best with high-quality acrylic exterior paint. Wood and composite surfaces are more versatile and can handle oil-based paint, and elastodynamic paint works best for brick surfaces.
You can save $1 to $3.50 per square foot by spray painting your home’s exterior yourself. At the same time, applying spray paint on a ladder requires a steady hand and can be dangerous without strict adherence to safety rules.
If you want to save yourself time and labor, consider hiring an exterior painter near you to do the job. The cost to paint the exterior of a house with a pro’s help ranges from $1,800 to $4,400 on average. If you’re unsure that you can get a good finish and stay safe while doing so, calling in a painter is the best choice.
Sara Coleman contributed to this article.
Spray painting your home’s exterior is by far the most time-efficient method for quickly painting your home. However, spray paint is messy, has thin coverage, and requires meticulous prep work in order to get a professional and clean finish. Though more time-consuming, rollers have a thicker application and are easier to paint with precision, resulting in a nicer appearance overall.
Once you prep a house for exterior painting, painting with a sprayer can go quickly. Spray painting results in a thin layer of paint, likely taking multiple layers to get full coverage. You can expect the spray paint job to take at least one day, including dry time, but it can take longer depending on how large of a home it is and the weather conditions.
To determine how much paint you need, measure the sides of your home exterior, multiplying the length by the width to get the square footage. Add together the square footage of each side for the total square footage of space that needs painting. Then, look at your chosen paint can to see how many square feet of coverage it offers. One gallon of paint typically covers up to 400 square feet of space. If you’re spray painting, you’ll need at least two coats of paint.
The best time to spray paint a house is when weather conditions are above 40 degrees and below 85 degrees, rain isn’t in the forecast for the duration of the paint project, and humidity levels are low. This is usually in early summer or fall, depending on where you live and the climate conditions in your area.
