7 Steps For How To Paint Your Home’s Exterior Walls Back To Beautiful
Breathe New Life Into Your San Diego County’s Home Curb Appeal With A Fresh Paint Job Or Brand New Color

In this post, you’ll find out how we paint house exteriors. You can also discover why each step is important and what it involves.
DIY Or Pro Painter?
“I’m honestly not sure for this one,” says Michelle.
David scratches the back of his head. “Yeah, me neither. We might want to look up how to paint house exterior walls on Google. We can decide on DIY or pro after seeing that.”
Michelle smiles and nods. “That’s a great idea! It would be fun to paint with each other again, but this is the exterior we’re talking about. I have a feeling as though it’s almost a totally different project than painting interior walls.”
“Sounds right to me,” says David as he wiggles his phone out of his pocket. “Let’s see if we can find how to paint a house exterior on a painting contractor’s website. If it seems like too much we can start looking into exterior painting costs.”
After searching for a bit, here’s what the couple finds:
How To Paint House Exterior Walls In 7 Steps

- Pick out the best row of days to paint
- Clean your exterior walls
- Lay drop cloths over natural areas
- Repair any damages
- Cover windows, doors, and other exterior items you’re not painting
- Prime
- Paint with two coats of high-quality paint
The Importance Of These House Exterior Painting Steps

Timing. You’ll want a series of days with nice weather. Rain and paint don’t get along well at all. You can use some paint that dries more quickly if you can’t find a few dry days in a row. You may want to know the best temperature to paint in too.
Cleaning exterior walls. Dirt, grime, and other stuff get between the paint and your home’s exterior walls. They’ll cause the paint to peel faster, meaning more work or money to fix it. Cleaning involves a pressure washer and sometimes mild, environmentally-friendly chemicals. They won’t harm people, plants, or animals.
The better your prep your walls the better the paint will work. That’s why we recommend using the best house exterior prep steps.
Drop cloths. Plants like water way more than paint. Drop cloths will raise the temperature but that’s much better than getting paint all over them.
Repairing damages. These can be cracks, peeling paint, water damage, and more. Paint can make damages easier to see. Damages will also make the paint peel faster, which means another round of painting or painters for you. This is a great time to do any sanding. This helps the paint stick better.
Covering. These include windows, doors, and anything else. You can use painter’s tape and sheets of plastic or another material.
Priming. Priming helps the paint stick to the surface better and longer. You can use a paint and primer in one, but there are mixed reviews on how well it works.
Painting. Higher-quality paint looks better and lasts longer than lower-quality (which is why it’s more expensive). But, if it lasts longer and looks better, that means less time and effort on your part. Also, you won’t have to have painters all over your house. You’ll want to get the best exterior paint for your type of siding (which usually comes down to Benjamin Moore vs Sherwin Williams).
How To Clean Exterior Walls Before Painting
You’ll want to use a pressure washer with a minimum of 3,000 psi. Adding a mild chemical like trisodium phosphate can help remove caked-on dirt and grime. Wash from the top down.
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“I feel like we could do it, but do we have the time and energy?” asks David. Michelle shrugs. “Do we want to spend time and energy or money? Here, why don’t we talk it over while we look through some of these other posts.”
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