DIY House Paint?

[DaveE]

I did my house and barn over 2 weeks one summer with a Wagner electric spray gun. It would have taken me 2 years with a brush I bet.

[LWJ]

Best quality and best cost paint in Portland? Metro recycled paint. Limited colors. Great stuff.

[jyl]

Cost for pro paint varies hugely here. One neighbor spent $6,000. Asian family, dad and three sons on the ladders and mom helping and feeding them. Took a few days. Other neighbor spent $60,000. Big crew, burned paint off, whole house to bare wood, lots of prep, multiple coats. Took a couple months. The $60K job looks a lot better than the $6K job but not 10X better. I'm sure it won't last 10X longer.

Do different colors hold up to the elements or conceal prep flaws differently?

[drcoastline]

Originally Posted by jyl

Cost for pro paint varies hugely here. One neighbor spent $6,000. Asian family, dad and three sons on the ladders and mom helping and feeding them. Took a few days. Other neighbor spent $60,000. Big crew, burned paint off, whole house to bare wood, lots of prep, multiple coats. Took a couple months. The $60K job looks a lot better than the $6K job but not 10X better. I'm sure it won't last 10X longer.

Do different colors hold up to the elements or conceal prep flaws differently?

I didn't see where you post info about the house. A simple two story with board and batten all one color is a far simpler job than say a stucco and timber Tudor or a Victorian. Also the condition of the existing paint and substrate so a lot of factors need to go into the decision.

Regardless a painting the exterior of a house is a miserable job. Sanding, caulking, up and down a ladder, cutting in, moving the ladder, etc, etc. If it's in the budget pay a professional save yourself the agony, misery, lost time and get a warranty.

Lighter colors last longer as the reflect heat vs. absorb heat, hide flaws and the conceal fade much better.

If you do go forward with DIY painting the house. Be careful, be very, very careful. I personally know two guys who ended up paraplegics from falling off ladders, One hanging lights for his daughters high school graduation, another died falling off a ladder cleaning his rain gutters and a fourth who died who fell off the ladder a tree trimming a branch. I am cheap and DIY a lot of my own house work from mowing the lawn to general maintenance. But I absolutely will not do anything that requires any work higher than a 10' A frame ladder.

[dad911]

New siding is probably not much more that a proper prep & paint.

[speeder]

Originally Posted by jyl

Cost for pro paint varies hugely here. One neighbor spent $6,000. Asian family, dad and three sons on the ladders and mom helping and feeding them. Took a few days. Other neighbor spent $60,000. Big crew, burned paint off, whole house to bare wood, lots of prep, multiple coats. Took a couple months. The $60K job looks a lot better than the $6K job but not 10X better. I'm sure it won't last 10X longer.

Do different colors hold up to the elements or conceal prep flaws differently?

Where was this? In California? Bay Area? Describe the two houses, otherwise this story makes no sense. Here in Los Angeles, (and probably other places), the cheapest house painters BY FAR were always Koreans when I was a house painter. I was among the most expensive, doing big restoration jobs on multi-million $$ older homes in historical neighborhoods, etc..

The Korean painters would bid jobs for a fraction of normal pricing and they were absolute slob painters and butchers who skipped the whole prep part of the process or made a token swipe at it w an electric sander. They would do a job in a fraction of the normal amount of time and for a fraction of the price.

I'd hear hilarious anecdotal stories of them showing up to do a large painting job with the paint on the first day. To put this in perspective, on many jobs I did, 80% of the job in terms of time and expense was prep and 20% was applying the final finishes. If the house has any architectural significance and isn't some stucco out building, hiring them is like taking an old 911 or 356 in for a restoration and the guy starts painting the car on the first day.

Asking about the cost of painting a house w/o a lot of details and location is impossible to answer. There are houses in the valley here that I would paint the exterior of for $1k plus paint and I've worked on a job in NYC where they were spending 6-figures on one room, and that was 25 years ago. I'm familiar w jobs in SoCal where people spent $750k on interior finishes. I know that these are extreme examples but illustrate the spectrum between Korean painters, (or other slobs), throwing paint at some house and true artists who get paid like heart surgeons for custom finishes. 98% of the painting business is smack in the middle of those two, most people want a quality job that will last and don't want their beautiful stone wall foundation and driveway spattered w house paint.

[speeder]

I should add that in other parts of the country and world, slob painters come in every imaginable skin tone and ethnicity, I'm sure. I'm referring to a particular geographical location and who the hack painters are as a group.

[GH85Carrera]

I painted my old rent house just before I put it on the market to sell it. My wife actually helped me. It was hot, miserable work. I ain't even doing that again!

Never again. Checkbook time.

[jyl]

Originally Posted by speeder

Where was this? In California? Bay Area? Describe the two houses, otherwise this story makes no sense. Here in Los Angeles, (and probably other places), the cheapest house painters BY FAR were always Koreans when I was a house painter. I was among the most expensive, doing big restoration jobs on multi-million $$ older homes in historical neighborhoods, etc..

The Korean painters would bid jobs for a fraction of normal pricing and they were absolute slob painters and butchers who skipped the whole prep part of the process or made a token swipe at it w an electric sander. They would do a job in a fraction of the normal amount of time and for a fraction of the price.

I'd hear hilarious anecdotal stories of them showing up to do a large painting job with the paint on the first day. To put this in perspective, on many jobs I did, 80% of the job in terms of time and expense was prep and 20% was applying the final finishes. If the house has any architectural significance and isn't some stucco out building, hiring them is like taking an old 911 or 356 in for a restoration and the guy starts painting the car on the first day.

Asking about the cost of painting a house w/o a lot of details and location is impossible to answer. There are houses in the valley here that I would paint the exterior of for $1k plus paint and I've worked on a job in NYC where they were spending 6-figures on one room, and that was 25 years ago. I'm familiar w jobs in SoCal where people spent $750k on interior finishes. I know that these are extreme examples but illustrate the spectrum between Korean painters, (or other slobs), throwing paint at some house and true artists who get paid like heart surgeons for custom finishes. 98% of the painting business is smack in the middle of those two, most people want a quality job that will last and don't want their beautiful stone wall foundation and driveway spattered w house paint.

My house is in Portland Oregon. An older (1911) house, 2.5 stories (I'm counting the attic as 0.5 since its the family room), about 2800 sf, wood siding, your typical Portland Craftsman-style Foursquare. A modest amount of detailing (exposed rafter tails and open eaves, etc) but not ornate like a Victorian. I'd guess the roof eave is about 25 ft off the ground. Existing paint condition is okay, still adhering almost everywhere, but starting to crack or detach in certain of the most exposed places. The last paint job was around 2000, it wasn't speeder type quality but has lasted this long. It is not a showpiece house, and the foundation walls are plain and lined with scrap wood, a derelict scooter, two old tires, and bags of potting soil, if that gives you a picture.

The two neighbors houses I mentioned are pretty similar to mine in size, height, form, style and age. Both 2.5 story Craftsman-ish style. One is owned by two schoolteachers with two kids to send to college. The other is owned by two highly paid DINKs (double income no kids).

[RWebb]

what is the condition of the existing paint?

use binocs to view top stories carefully

examine N. facing & S. facing (mold, wet & sun, heat)

[Deschodt]

Did it once, never again.... Aside from the aforementioned risks of death, I developed trigger finger from all the the rolling and spraying, the spraying ended up all over windows and eaves and places it shouldn't have gone due to sudden wind changes, and i spent a few years after that cleaning up. Not worth it.

I put moving in the same box now. I moved our 3500sqft home into pods all by myself but the shoulder took 2 years to get back to normal. F this...

[Erakad]

Have painted my house twice. Once before renovation and once after. In both cases I hated the prep, the actual painting (I have a sprayer) wasn't that bad...did it in a day. There is a big "however" though...the last time the contractor's scaffolding was up and I used it to get the very high spots (pre-renovation there was nothing that was not reachable via ladder). Also, I still have the very high trim to do (after 2 years!), I've thought long and hard and have decided to hire someone to do that. IF I need to paint again, I will, again, hire a professional to do the high stuff vice renting the scaffolding. I'm tall and 30+ ft ladders and scaffolding aren't my favorite.