Our #1 priority at Foothills is to create a great painting experience for our customers. One way in which we do this is by walking with them throughout the whole process of their painting project. From our initial consultation to the very final walk through. On top of this, we are always providing information to help you make better decisions about your painting needs either through this blog or our Facebook page. We hope that you find this information about choosing paint colors helpful.
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At Foothills Painting, we have great painters in Fort Collins, Longmont, Loveland, Lafayette, Thornton, and all along the Front Range ready to tackle your project!
If you’re not sure you’re ready to get an estimate, there are some easy ways to find out if your house needs painting.
There are 3 common paint problems on homes. Simply take 5-10 minutes to walk around your house to identify any of these problems.
Problem #1: Fading Paint
You’ll notice the paint on your house fading on the areas that get the most sun…. typically the south and west sides of the house. If you wipe a dry, dark colored rag or towel on the house, you’ll notice some chalking paint come off the house. If your are noticing this happening, your wood is not very well protected any longer. Moisture can get into those boards and cause warping. The solution is to get a new coat of paint on there to protect it! At Foothills Painting, we always recommend a full power wash before painting in order to remove that chalking from the house before applying that new fresh coat.
Problem #2: Peeling paint
This problem occurs on all parts of the home. The first places to peel are the areas that get the most moisture. Examples of this are window sills, bottom of the garage trim, bottom of the door trim, or other places that snow sits. Once paint peels off, the wood is no longer protected. Moisture gets into the wood and can rot the boards. The solution to peeling paint is to scrape the loose paint off, sand the area down to create a good texture, apply a full coat of primer to protect the wood, and a finish coat.
Problem #3: Cracking paint and failing caulking
Cracking is a very common problem you’ll notice in the joints of the house where boards meet. Check around door frames, window frames, and anywhere the siding meets the trim. If you notice cracks, this is where water can get behind the boards and rot them from the inside out. The solution to this is simple: re-caulk those cracks with fresh caulking.
Now that you’ve found problems and identified, do you need to paint? The answer isn’t a simple yes or no.
The purpose of paint is to protect the house, and beautify your home. If the house LOOKS bad, and it’s embarrassing, you should paint.
If you’ve noticed problems listed above, it doesn’t mean you have to paint. If you choose to wait, you can expect those problems to get worse, you can expect more damage to be done to the wood, you can expect your paint price to go up the next year, and you do risk having to repair boards.
Repairing one board on a house could cost up to an extra $50-$100 per board. If this is the first time you are noticing the peeling paint, fading paint, or cracking paint… it’s probably not that urgent.
Our recommendation: If you’ve noticed problems on your house, now is a good time to paint. It’s only going to get more expensive. The longer you wait, the lower quality the job will be (because the surface is in poorer condition).
Contact us for a free estimate. When you get an estimate from Foothills Painting, we’ll show you around the house, identify these problem areas, and show you exactly what we would recommend doing when painting your house.
The purpose of this article is to help you get a ball park price for your exterior painting estimate.
Painting companies in Fort Collins, Loveland, Longmont, and the Front Range of Colorado will all vary in prices. If you are looking for a reliable painting company, that’s fully licensed and insured, and offers warranties to guarantee their work – most of those companies’ prices will fall in the same ball park.
Exterior painting prices can range from $2,000 to over $10,000 to paint the full exterior of the house depending on several factors. We are going to consider at a few of the most important factors.
How big is your house?
1 story: Start with base price of $2000
2 story: Start with base price of $3000
Condition of house?
Good Condition: Multiply base price by 1.1
Fair Condition: Multiply base price by 1.2
Bad condition: Multiply base price by 1.3
How many coats?
1 Coat: No change to price
2 Coats: Multiply price by 1.3
Quality of paint?
Low grade: No change to price
Mid grade: Multiply price by 1.1
Top of the line: Multiply price by 1.3
Example…
2 Story House ($3000)
Fair Condition… $2500×1.2 = $3,600
2 Coats… $3,000×1.3 = $4,800
Mid Grade Paint… $3,900×1.1 = $5,000
If your home was built before 1978, it needs to be checked for lead paint. If your house does have lead paint on it, your price will increase by 2x-3x due to the EPA regulations on lead paint procedures.
As you can tell, there is a huge range of prices for painting your house.
When you get an estimate from Foothills Painting, we will walk you around your house and identify all of the problem areas on your house. We’ll also make several recommendations, and educate you on what your options are.
We believe it’s important for you to have options, so we’re happy to write up different options for your painting project so you can see what will best suit your needs and your budget.
Call Foothills Painting today for a customized painting estimate. We look forward to serving you!
Have you consider exterior painting for your home? Contrary to popular belief, the actual painting of a home only consists of about 25% of a total paint job. The most important part of painting your home is the preparation work. A good “prep job” can be (and usually is) the difference between painting your home every four years or every nine years.
One thing to be sure and ask any painter that comes to give you an estimate is how they prepare a house before painting. It is an easy thing to cut corners on prep and you want to be able to trust that what is underneath your paint is going to hold up well for years to come.
Each home is different in many ways and will require more or less preparation of certain areas, but there are five main methods we use at Foothills Painting to ensure a paint job lasts as long as possible.
The first is pressure washing. This removes dirt and debris from siding and trim before the paint is applied. Also, this will remove the old, fading paint that is no longer adhered to the wood/siding so that the new paint has a nice, clean surface to latch on to.
After a thorough wash, our painters then scrape areas that have begun to crack and peel. It is important to remove the old peeling paint so that the new paint can latch onto the wood (and primer) rather than failing, bondless paint. Plus, when the wood is exposed to the sun, rain and snow, it is much more susceptible to rotting and thus needing replacement.
Once the old peeling paint has been scraped off, it is important to sand the exposed wood for two main reasons (the wood on houses older than 15 years can be quite dry and damaged). Most importantly, this will create more surface area and a good “bite” for the primer to really latch on and sink in to. It also reduces the ridge created by the existing paint that was not scraped off and the bare wood next to it.
Finally, a thick coat of primer is applied to the exposed wood/siding. Peel Bond Primer from Sherwin Williams is a thick, durable primer we love using. This is where the magic happens! Primer is made almost exclusively to protect the wood/siding from further weather damage. However, it also is filled with resin and other bonding agents that “grab” the wood while also grabbing the other bonding agents found in paint. Paint adheres much better to this prime coat than it does if it was applied directly to the wood. Many painters use a very limited amount of primer and some don’t use it at all, so make sure to ask them what their preparation process consists of!
Caulking is another important step before the painting is actually done. Caulk is used to seal joints around windows, doors, etc. to prevent water, dirt and debris from damaging the wood. It also keeps your home better insulated, keeping your heating and air conditioning bills low! Caulk should also be used in the sunken nail holes so that water does not have a chance to sit on the ledges these holes create and swell the boards up.
There are other preparation tactics such as wood putty, chemical sprays, and mildew removers among others, that are needed in certain cases.
For further inquiries about prep work, other parts of the painting process, or to schedule an in-home estimate, don’t hesitate to call Foothills Painting at (970) 286-0060.
Thanks for reading!