We are going to paint our house. It is mostly brick and limestone and we will not be painting that. However, there is a wood trim, and a overhang that we will be painting. Around the windows and parts of the overhang definitely need scraping. What we want to know is if we HAVE to scrape the rest of the paint that is not peeling or bubbling, etc.
To get a good end result you need to start with a sound base, this means you need to remove any loose, bubbling or flaking paint, you can use a paint-scraper to do this. Once any loose material is removed you need to ‘key’ the remaining paintwork by sanding it down. This will break the surface of the existing paint and allow the new paint to adhere correctly.
When sanding, avoid the heavyweight (gritty) sandpapers, these are too rough and will scratch into the woodwork rather than just the surface.
Make sure that the surfaces are really clean before starting to paint, household detergent is quite good but there are many products specially designed for cleaning down paintwork.
If there’s any damage to the woodwork this needs to be treated, small holes can be remedied using a suitable exterior filler – available from most DIY stores. Once dried sand down the filler with a lightweight sandpaper.
Any bare wood needs to be sealed before it can be painted and for this you need to use primer. If you paint unprimed wood it’s like painting a sponge, the paint just soaks in. If there’s a lot of bare patches it’s wise to prime everything.
An undercoat can be useful as the next step, especially if there is a significant change from the existing colour to the new one (e.g if it was black and you’re now painting it white). Some primers include undercoat so you can combine both stages into one. Undercoat isn’t essential but it can be useful.
Next paint the first coat of gloss paint (oil paint). Once it’s completely dried give it a very light sanding then apply the second coat. If after two coats the paintwork still looks patchy then lightly sand again and apply a third coat. In most cases two coats will suffice, if you’ve used an undercoat then one coat may be sufficient.
Couple of useful tips – start from the top and work down, when doing window and door frames start from the inside and work out. If you splash paint on the windows let it dry then scrape it off with window scraper, craft knife or razor blade. Remember that preparation is the key thing, the more you do the better the end result. Good luck.
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