A fresh coat of paint can boost your home’s curb appeal and help protect it from the elements. And what better time to do it than during May, National Home Improvement Month?
When you paint the exterior of your home with exterior latex paint, the most durable, toughest, most protective finish is achieved when the weather isn’t too hot or too cold, which is why springtime is typically the best time of year for exterior house painting. Here are five reasons to paint your home this spring from franklinpainting.com:
Spring is a Great Time for Staining Projects
Whether touching up your deck or giving the whole house a new look, spring is a great time for painting and staining projects. “The weather is usually warming up, but not yet reaching those hot summer temps, giving homeowners optimal conditions to complete a paint or stain project outside,” says Erin Bovenzi, associate brand manager for Valspar. “Another advantage to painting in the spring is that trees and shrubbery are just starting to bloom, which lessens the possibilities of landscaping and foliage being in the way of our exterior projects.” Bovenzi also notes that spring is when more homeowners start putting their houses on the market again, and a good-looking exterior can help increase the value of the home.
Your Home’s Exterior is Stressed Out
In some ways your home’s exterior paint job gets stressed out. It’s not the kind of anxiety we experience, such as concern over the kids’ grades, being overloaded on the job, and dealing with automobile troubles. Instead, exterior paint gets hassled by various weather conditions.
Moisture can wreak havoc on exterior paint. Snow, ice, frost, rain, and high humidity can all negatively affect the paint. Moisture in all forms can cause paint to swell and soften, which eventually leads to cracking, blistering, flaking, and peeling. Moisture conditions also support the growth of mildew.
The sun can cause paint to fade, and it can diminish the protection that the paint provides for the exterior, due to paint erosion. What happens is that the ultraviolet rays of the sun can break down the exterior paint’s binder. As the binder deteriorates, pigment is released in the form of chalk or a powder which can wash away when it rains.
Dramatic fluctuations in temperature can cause wood surfaces and many other surfaces to contract and expand. The movement can cause paint to crack and flake off, if the paint on the surface isn’t flexible enough.
Repairs are Needed
Most homeowners are not aware of the many small things that are going wrong on their home’s exterior until they paint it. The prep work that goes into an exterior paint job usually reveals the many areas in need of repair. If the exterior paint on your home is close to the end of its life expectancy, you are taking chances by postponing the new paint job. It doesn’t take long for exposed wood to begin rotting. There are other issues you can discover, as well. It’s usually much more expensive to replace things than to repair them; so you don’t want to wait too long.
Improve Your Home’s Curb Appeal
If you are sprucing up your home in order to increase curb appeal for potential buyers, the most effective action you can take is to paint your home’s exterior. Everything that goes along with painting the outside of your home equates to ending up with the very best look you can put out there.
People who are looking to buy a new home often decide whether or not they want to look inside a home based on what the outside looks like. It’s only logical to assume that if the house has peeling paint, a dingy-looking paint job, and missing trim, the interior is not worth viewing; that’s why some potential buyers will just drive by instead of going in.
There are many things you can do to improve your home’s curb appeal but none is typically as effective as an exterior paint job, especially if you choose colors with the most appeal. One study revealed that the most popular colors for homes are neutrals such as gray, white, tan, blue, and brown; bold shades such as reds and blues are welcome, as long as they are used as accents, such as on the front door or window shutters.
Increase the Value of your Home
The best investments are those in which you invest a lot less than what you get back. Painting your home is one of those kinds of investments. The increase in your home’s value is typically much greater the cost of getting it painted by a professional.
It’s Just That Time
Exterior paint has an expiration date. The amount of time between the need for exterior paint jobs is partly a factor of the type of paint you use. When you use a better quality of exterior paint, you can wait longer before the next paint job is needed. Another factor is the quality of work performed in painting the home.
