How should i approach prepping and painting my house?


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Old 04-01-18, 08:42 AM
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How should i approach prepping and painting my house?

I've never painted a house before although I've had a lot of experience interior painting and am good at lines, etc. Anyways, I have a tiny 1971 built ranch that's 1 floor and it has those striated cedar shingles and a couple layers of paint that is in many places loose, but hasn't fallen off.

The painting doesn't overwhelm me, but the thought of the prep work does a little. I realize it's not going to come out 100% great because whoever previously painted and scraped, etc left many uneven layers where paint could not be taken off for whatever reason. That's ok, I still think it will come out ok and from the street it's not a big deal.

So, I'm wondering how I should approach the prep. Should I just scrape, peel, etc, the loose stuff and not get all crazy and try and get everything off? That would drive me crazy this summer I'm sure .... and I've been known to be a perfectionist!

In the worse case, say I just paint over everything and do absolutely NO prep. What would happen? Would the new paint hold down some of the loose paint? Like I said, most of the loose stuff has held up and there are VERY few bare areas, besides what I physically attempted to peel by hand and it did peel right off an leave bare striated cedar.

I don't want to pressure wash or anything either. Do they have thicker paints that will help hold down and meld everything together?

I am going to prep, but my idea is to JUST get the loose, easy to peel, scape stuff off and then prime the bare wood. I don't want to have to spend all summer scraping and peeling paint. My house is so small that I literally could paint the front in maybe a day, just to give you an idea. It's 900 sf.

Oh and I just bought a lead testing kit at HD since this house is built in 1971. Hopefully there's no lead cause that'll scare me off!

Thanks!
 
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Old 04-01-18, 09:33 AM
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Oh and I just bought a lead testing kit at HD since this house is built in 1971

Your on the border, lead was banned in the late 70s.


So what is the house material that will be painted?
 
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Old 04-01-18, 12:17 PM
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Washing the house should almost always be a part of the prep process! You don't have to use a pressure washer although they do make the job easier/quicker. Is the current paint chalky?

Washing the siding often helps in the scraping process. With shingles I'll both scrape and use a wire brush. A new coat of paint will help peeling paint to stay adhered to an extent ..... but it's always best to remove as much loose paint as feasible!!

If there is any lead paint, it will be in the original coat or two of paint. Many houses with lead paint have had most of it peel over the years. The odds are it will still be intact in the more protected areas.
 
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Old 04-01-18, 12:52 PM
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Thanks I'll be painting grooved cedar shakes. Most of the house is intact, but 1 side is pretty peeling, but it's all staying on for the most part. Someone scraped it years ago from the looks of all the uneven paint in certain areas. I have peeled sections off and can see what looks like a total of 2 layers, not really sure.

A good deal of the house the paint is really well adhered, so I assume I can just wash and then paint those areas first? It's a gray now and I'm thinking of Navy blue with white trim.

I got one of those 3m test kits.
 
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Old 04-01-18, 12:57 PM
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As long as the existing paint isn't chalky there shouldn't be any issues with the new paint adhering to the old.
 
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Old 04-01-18, 01:24 PM
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Something I just thought of. Since these are cedar shakes, they could've been stained in 1971 when they built the house or whatever. So they may have not been painted until much later when lead paint was already banned. Thoughts? I'm still going to test.

What about the reliability of the store bought lead tests? I think I got a 3m for $10.

I'll have to check is the paint is 'chalky", but I don't remember it coming off onto my fingers or anything.
 
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Old 04-02-18, 02:28 AM
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It's hard to say how the shingles were finished originally. Many of them were stained but I've also painted a few - it depends on the look the customer was going for. Only oil base paints had lead in them [not all just some] Latex paints never had any lead. I don't know anything about the lead testing kits other than the ones where you send off a sample to a lab.
 
 

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