Painting your house will not only improve its looks.
It's also the best thing you can do to protect it
from the elements.
And in New Zealand's weather, that's pretty important.
A coat of paint is your first line
of defense against moisture.
And with regular maintenance, a solid paint job
should last you a good many years.
Preparation is the key when you're painting,
so I'll show you how to do it properly.
Then we'll get painting.
I'm going to show you how to paint exterior weatherboards.
Now from the outset, this house looks pretty tidy.
But if you look really closely, you can see a lot of bubbles
throughout probably about 70% of the weatherboards.
Now generally, bubbling happens because of poor preparation,
or applying paint on a surface that is too hot
or in the direct sunlight.
Whatever your reason for repainting, whether you've
got crackly or bubbly or flaky paint,
the preparation is pretty much the same.
So our best friend in this sort of situation is one of these.
Very nice and cheap Linbide paint scraper.
This here is going to do a mountain of work
that a sander would take hours to do.
So the first thing we need to do, before we do any painting,
is prep the outside of us with our scraper.
Then we're going to come back with a sander.
OK.
Now just before I crack into it, I've
put on some protective clothing.
Got gloves, a good paper suit, and a really good respirator.
The reason for this is there may be lead-based paint
in this old house.
So I've also put down a drop cloth
that's going to catch any of the flaking paint.
Now, if you think there is lead in your paint,
you might want to contact the local authorities
about the disposal of that old paint.
Now I'm going to use this Linbide paint scraper,
and I'm just going to remove any loose or flaky paint.
If your house is in pretty rough condition,
you'll want to give it a water blast before you get into it.
OK.
I've scraped back all the loose and bubbly bits.
Now you can see exactly where all those bubbles were.
And I've scraped that back nearly to the bare timber,
so I've got about six or seven layers of paint in there.
So what I need to do is use the sander
to feather that out so it's nice and smooth.
Now, the best sort of sander that you can use
is one like this.
It's an orbital sander.
It's 125-millimeter.
The good thing about these is it's aerated,
so the disk isn't getting hot, so you're not continuously
replacing this as if you were using a belt sander.
Now I've got an 80-grit on here.
If I find it's not sanding it back enough,
I could probably go to a 60.
But usually you start a little bit higher and work your way
down if it's not doing the job.
But otherwise, I think I'm going to start with an 80,
then I'll work my way up to a 120.
Righty.
I've sanded all the wall down.
I'm just about ready to put some primer on.
Before I do that, I'm going to give the wall
a wipe-down with this damp cloth, just to remove any dust
or grit that's left on there.
Now, I've also taped down our scriber
using some masking tape.
Now, just make sure the type of masking tape
that you use is going to last the duration of your job,
because we all know taking masking tape off
can be a tricky business.
Now, so the type of primer that I've got
is a primer sealer and under-coat all in one.
Now, you can actually tent your undercoat if you wish.
It's going to give you a little bit more depth in your color.
Now also just a little tip.
Make sure you just work out of a smaller paint
container than your original one,
because we don't want the air to get too much to that.
And I'm pretty much going to paint the entire surface
of this weatherboard, because I've
sanded pretty much the whole face of it, and a lot of areas
are back to the bare timber.
So just to be safe, I'm just going
to paint the whole lot of the weatherboards.
And it's going to give me overall a nicer finish.
Now, when you are using a paint brush, great little tip
for you, try and buy the best quality
paint brush that you can afford.
The better the paint brush, the better
the finish you're going to get.
When you are painting weatherboards like this,
you are going to get a better finish--
once I've come right to the middle here,
I'm going to start from the dry side
and then work my way back into the wet side.
If I was to carry on like that, I'm
continuously getting these little stop-and-starty paint
marks, and it's not going to look as good
as if I've come halfway across like that,
get a nice one line straight, then
I'm going to start from my dry side and blend into it.
OK.
I'm just about finished my primer undercoat.
Now, I want my top coat to match the rest of the house, which
is the original paint color.
Now, I don't actually know what that is, so what I've done,
when I was scraping the house down,
I actually kept a little bit of that sample of the paint.
Now I'm going to take that into Mitre 10.
Using their color match technology with Valspar,
I can get that exact color so everything matches up
perfectly.
Righty-o.
All the primer is on.
And I'm ready to fill all my little gaps and holes.
Now, there's two types of products
that we use for filling gaps and holes.
One is our good quality contract filler here.
We apply that with a spatula.
And then we'll sand it off once it's dry.
The other one is our flexible gap filler.
Now, once this goes on, we can remove a little bit
of the excess with a damp rag.
But once that goes on, it can't be sanded,
so don't be too generous and get too carried away.
So I've punched all my nails.
And I've also applied a little bit of the rust killer
over top of the bare nails, so I'm ready to put on our filler.
Use a good quality exterior contract filler
on the surface of your weatherboards.
And use a flexible filler in between your weatherboards
and around the joinery.
OK.
All my fillers are dry.
I'm now ready to give the wall boards and the filler
a light sand back.
I'm using a 180 grit on this nice little easy-to-use hand
sander.
I'm going to put a dust mask on, just to cover myself.
And make sure you dust down after sanding.
Now, just before I crack into my top coast,
I'm just going to use a little bit of this quick dry primer
on the areas that we filled.
I'm going to let that sit for about 20 minutes,
and then we're ready for our first top coat.
Righty-o.
All my hard work is done.
I'm just about ready to start painting my first top coat.
Now, because this house here is pretty old,
I've decided to use a primer.
The reason for that was that's going
to hide any slight imperfections that
might be in the weatherboard.
Now, if you're painting a new house, with this Valspar paint,
it's a primer and paint in one, so you can just
apply this straight to the weatherboards.
Now I'm using this nice big wide 100-millimeter brush here.
That's giving me plenty of coverage,
pretty much covering the whole width
of that weatherboard as I go.
And that's a really good, fine bristle on that.
The good thing about that is it's
going to give me a really nice fine finish.
Now, really important when you are painting houses,
you do want to be painting in the shade.
So now this is all nicely shaded right here.
We don't have any direct sunlight.
If I did have direct sunlight, what would happen
is the paint would try to soon.
And then later on, it'll bubble pretty quickly.
It's also important to make sure it's not too cold
or damp when you are painting.
When you've finished painting your first coat,
you need to leave it for at least three to four hours
before painting your second coat.
Now, the joinery in this house is in fantastic condition,
so we don't actually need to do anything to it.
But if you're in the situation where
you do need to give it a paint, the prep work
is all exactly the same as what you're
doing for your weatherboards.
Now, see this little line here that is just up onto the glass?
When you are painting around your window,
you want to come up about two to three millimeters using
some masking tape so you're actually
painting from your putty line up onto the glass.
That way, you're going to get a really good seal
so no water can get in between the glass and the putty.
Now, if your putty is quite cracked,
you will need to replace it, because water will get in.
So you can hack that out with a putty knife.
And then you want to give that a prime using
some oil-based primer.
And then you want to apply some window sash putty in there.
Now, you might just want to read the back of the label for how
long it takes to dry before you go and paint over top of it.
Now one final tip.
When you are painting your windows or doors,
make sure you have the windows open when you're painting them.
You certainly don't want to be painting the windows shut.
Check it out, a great result. And it was easy as.
Follow these steps, and with the right prep and paint job,
you can put away the brushes for a good few years.