Housepainting for Dummies

Thats right, folks! This is the much-anticipated housepainting adventure post that you have been waiting ever so patiently for. As I discussed here last spring, our major home improvement project for 2010 was painting the exterior of our house ourselves. This big undertaking began on Memorial Day Weekend and was finally finished...

...wait for it...

...four months later.

Do we know how to drag out a project or what? Now, I could use a few excuses, like the fairly constant rain we had during the month of June, the flooding incident that occurred two days after we started painting, our ten day trip to Alaska in July, and the three summer weekends already booked for attending friends' weddings, but I'm not an excuse kind of gal. The bottom line is that we had a wonderful summer, and the painting was eventually completed.

Would I choose to paint the house again by ourselves? (We will likely have to in a few short years.) Probably not. But then, I was never an advocate for painting it ourselves anyway. Yes, it is the cheaper option by far. But let's be honest here: Justin and I both work full time and we have a very busy toddler to keep up with. I would just as soon pay someone else the extra money to knock out the painting in a few days, while I relax in my back yard with a lemonade, admiring their hard work.

On the other hand, Justin is convinced that, all delays considered, he would still paint it himself before hiring an outside party to do it for us.

Suddenly vinyl siding is sounding pretty good, don't you think?

As owners of a fixer-upper, we are constantly learning the ins and outs of home improvement projects. Here are just a few of the lessons learned with this project:

DO get the prep work done prior to painting day. It will take you longer than planned.

DO whatever it takes to complete the project while your mother-in-law is available to watch the kiddo.

DO buy the bulk of your paint the same day you plan to start painting (if you can), because trying to shake/mix a 5 gallon bucket of paint by yourself, after the paint has settled for a few weeks, is an abs and arms workout of hideous proportions.

DO expect your paint job to get smudged or dirty as soon as you have it completed (Murphy's Law), and be ready to let it go. A praying mantis pooped on the white trim of our front door not two days after I finished painting it. (Up until then it never occurred to me that bugs actually poop.)

DO follow the directions for removing the masking tape as soon as feasibly possible.

DO NOT be surprised if you leave the masking tape on for a few weeks and it pulls off a layer of your new house paint when you finally get around to removing it. Or better yet, when you pull it off and it leaves all it's stickiness on your fresh paint, which can only be remedied by sanding down the surface and painting it all over again.

And you wonder why it took us four months to complete this project?

And now I will shutup and give you what you are really after - the before and after pics:

We love how it turned out!