Exterior Remodeling Ideas Appropriate For Your Home
Home makeovers are not just for the inner recesses of your house. In many cases, the exterior of a home can be in desperate need of an alteration. The exterior is the most evident part of your home, but too frequently it can also be the most neglected. The home exteriors are subject to wear and tear by the elements of nature, so caution must be taken to lay the exteriors skillfully and with excellent materials. It is a glorious excuse to go out, breathe the fresh air and unwind. But in order to unwind you have to plan your surroundings in order to enjoy them. The outer surface is a significant part of any house. Appropriate maintenance and remodeling can enhance the efficacy and efficiency of the house and at the same time adding value to your home.
Update your Front Yard
It is good to employ a professional to carry out an exterior home improvement project. The front yard is a good place to start. It is the first thing people see when they drive by your house. The entryway of your home is the first thing people notice when they come for a visit. In a sense, it’s like the face of your house. That face could be cheery and cordial, or it could be scowling and turning guests away, depending on how it’s designed.
Painting the Front Door
One of the biggest improvements which are practically simple to do is to paint your front door. Putting a fresh coat of paint on the front door will give it an immediate and polished decorative touch, and at the same time shield your door from the elements of nature. Renovators and home designers concurred that your front door is the most spectacular exterior feature of your own home which creates the utmost effect to potential buyers.
Update Porch Light
Another excellent way to make your front door welcoming and inviting is to update your porch light fixtures. The front porch light is something most homeowners seldom replace. Porch light globes are easy on the pocket and a simple way to change the entire outlook and ambiance of your front door. Excellent porch lights fixtures oftentimes is your initial sign of welcome to everyone who visits your home.
Build a Deck
A small number of home enhancements can equal a wooden deck for expediency, exquisiteness and improved value to a home. Decks are exterior living areas used mainly for entertainment and dining as well as for sunbathing. They are also utilized for kids as a playing area.
In most cases your outdoor space should compliment your existing house design and this is remarkably true for any space that’s viewable from the distance. Making sure your outdoor living space is attractive from the street is only half of the design consideration. Your new outdoor living areas should also look eye-catching and appealing from inside your home otherwise it will eventually start making you exasperated whenever you peek at it from inside the house. Remodeling is not always just about maintaining your investment, often remodeling and renovating are emotionally dictated. Our homes are personal places that reflect our personality and individual outlook in life. Also with gas prices and economic recession, many are doing more entertaining at home instead of going out.
Exterior Painting Tips – 14 Steps to a Better Looking House
Exterior painting is one of the most important things you can do to protect the largest investment you probably will make during life. For exterior painting to last, there are requisite steps that must be taken to properly prepare your home’s exterior before applying paint. In addition to the prep work, there are some important application procedures that will serve to deliver a nice looking paint job that you can be proud of.
The first step in preparation for exterior painting is to pressure wash your house using M1 and bleach, making sure flaking paint, dirt, mildew, green algae, wasp nest, and other obstructions are removed. Once washed, scrape any remainder of loose paint off with a sharp scraper and metal brush. Sand any bare wood to prepare it for primer. Be sure and wear some kind of eye protection and then start at the top and work your way down, holding the nozzle about six inches away from the surface and at a 45 degree angle. If you find mildew still exist after this process, you may need to apply bleach to a rag and scrub these areas. Mildew is attracted to the oil in oil-based paints but will grow on latex paints as well. If mildew is growing on your home, and you can’t seem to eliminate it completely, you may want to add some mildew inhibitor to your paint. However, I will give you a word of caution at this point. Good quality paints already have a safe amount of mildew inhibitors engineered into their formulas. If you add more mildewcide to your paint it can cause your paint to fade prematurely with a lot of exposure to sunlight. Allow all surfaces to dry thoroughly before caulking and priming bare wood. Exterior painting is significantly improved with proper caulking. When caulking trim to siding, the durability of the caulk joint can be improved by spreading the bead of caulk with your finger. This will improve adhesion. When caulking trim to brick, make sure you use a very narrow bead of caulk but do not spread with your finger, or you will make a mess of the caulk line and have to clean your brick. Just use some common sense when caulking. If you are caulking Hardie Plank, use a top quality elastomeric caulk with a high stretch capacity. Hardie plank expands and contracts more than most caulks can handle. Inspect all metal surfaces for peeling paint (railings, gutters, etc.). Remove loose paint with a metal brush or power brush. Effective acrylic bonding primers exist on the market today for priming bare metal. If you are painting brick, check for cracks. Caulk cracks before painting. If masonry is less than five years old it can leach out under a painted coating. If less than five years, then avoid this problem by etching with a solution of muriatic acid (1 part acid to 5 parts water). Be sure and take appropriate precautions. This acid is very caustic. Wear rubber gloves and goggles for protection. Pour the water in a plastic container first, then add the acid. This will help prevent splashing. Scrub this compound into concrete. This solution will neutralize the acid in the concrete. Wash off the solution with fresh water. Your concrete is now etched. Check your home for any bare wood and prime with a high quality latex primer or a top quality oil base primer. This primer coat is the only coat that bonds directly to the wood, therefore, it needs to be of top quality. A top coat of paint on your home is no better than the first coat that is applied to the wood. If the first coat (primer) fails, then the top coats and primer coat peel off together. Consider masking around light fixtures, motion sensors, electrical boxes, etc. If you are planning to use a paint sprayer for your siding, then I recommend covering all windows with plastic and tape. This will save you a lot of time in clean up. In my opinion, as a professional in this industry, where siding joins trim, always cut your trim in to the outer leading edge of the board instead of following the contour of your siding. This produces greater eye appeal from a distance. Where the siding meets the trim is always rounded out with caulk, making it a very poor place to scribe a straight line with your brush. Avoid time consuming clean up by protecting shrubs, walk ways, roofs, patios, etc with drop cloths. Clean up will cost you much more in time than cover up. When painting exterior surfaces, the do-it-yourselfer has one major consideration, the weather. Paints have optimum conditions in which they should be applied. It is best not to paint in extreme heat, cold or in the presence of precipitation. Check your paint can label for temperature restrictions. Painting your siding before painting the trim will save you a lot of cut in time with a brush. If you are planning to stain or paint your decks or patio, then do them last, since you will be working off them during your project. It is best to work from the top down since you will be dripping some paint. Although you need to work from top down, you also should work from side to side as much as possible. This will assist in avoiding a lot of up and down motion on ladders during your exterior painting project. If you are planning to use a roller to apply paint to lap siding, you will need to back brush to smoothly spread the paint. Roller naps leave a texture to the surface. Be sure and coat the underside edge of each board of lap siding to prevent water absorption from rain. For stucco, I recommend spraying and dry back rolling to achieve an even distribution of paint. The sprayer applies the paint and the roller simple spreads the paint. Use W strokes with the roller. Avoid dipping the roller in paint as you will be applying to much paint, causing the painted stucco to look uneven. Only allow the paint applied by the sprayer to the stucco to soak into the roller nap. Cedar shingles with their uneven surface can be painted with a 4″ brush or sprayer. I personally believe you can achieve the best look using a paint sprayer to coat cedar shingles and most other types of siding.
Substandard preparation may save you a little bit of time, but you will pay for it in durability and quality of appearance. It is always best to take your time with the above procedures. They will produce a paint job you will be proud to display.
Big Problems With Some Exterior House Coating Warranties
There was a company who guaranteed that their product would last for the lifetime of your home. I will not name the product manufacturer, but this company is not what I would consider to be 100% legitimate and gave many of their customers a false illusion of their warranty.
I recently worked on a house where this company painted the woods fascia board and a couple of the exterior beams. The homeowner contacted me to do the repairs and explained that the company was only responsible for the product, not the installation of the product.
In other words, the lifetime guarantee was only for the paint that was applied to the fascia board and wood beam, it wasn’t good for the labor that it would take to reapply another coat of paint to protect the house. I don’t really know how many homeowners would actually consider this to be an excellent home warranty.
If you’re thinking about having any exterior coatings applied to your home that have a limited or lifetime warranty attached to them, make sure that you find out as much information that you can about their warranties, especially if you’re planning on using their guarantees in the future.
If you’re really concerned about the warranty, have the salesperson explain it to you in detail and if they don’t understand the warranty or avoid answering your questions, it wouldn’t be a bad idea to find another company or product.
Be careful whenever you hear the words lifetime or limited lifetime warranty. Sometimes it’s just another way for someone to sell an inferior building product or a product that thoroughly hasn’t been tested properly.