Exterior House Painting this Weekend

By Mark J. Donovan

Much of my past weekend was dedicated to exterior house painting. The paint on my family room addition house siding and exterior trim work had faded dramatically in the past year or so and was looking quite splotchy. So, with the weather still above 50 degrees Fahrenheit (just barely) I decided to make exterior house painting my weekend project. The previous weekend I had cleaned the house siding with a pressure washer and a house siding detergent so all conditions were right for tackling this project.

I started off my weekend exterior house painting project by first painting the house siding on Saturday. On Sunday I went back and painted all of the trim work. My biggest pain in the neck was shuffling around the heavy fiberglass ladder and positioning it so that it would not inadvertently tilt or slide over when I was standing on it.

After finishing painting the exterior trim on Sunday, I went back and used a razor blade to clean up around the windows. Finally I decided to caulk around the windows to reduce air drafts into the home. I had noticed while doing the exterior house painting that much of the old caulk had separated from the house siding and window frame. With the ladder already out and in place, it only took a few minutes to caulk the windows.

The newly painted house siding and trim work around the family room looks great. So much so that I have convinced myself that if weather conditions permit, I may elect to dedicate next weekend to exterior house painting too. The garage could use a fresh coat as well!