House Painting

Most paint that fails early did not fail because of the paint. It failed because it went onto a surface that was chalky, glossy, damp or dirty, and it never really bonded in the first place. Scraping, sanding, filling, caulking and priming is the unglamorous part that decides whether the finish lasts.

We paint Minnesota homes, and we do the preparation properly before anything is opened. Surfaces get cleaned and made sound, trim and glass get masked, and floors and fixtures get covered. Then the coats go on.

What this covers

• Interior walls, ceilings and trim
• Exterior siding, trim and soffits
• Surface preparation, patching and caulking
• Priming bare, patched and problem surfaces
• Cabinet, door and railing finishes

Preparation is most of the job

On a typical exterior, the painting is the short part. The days before it are washing, scraping, sanding, filling, caulking and priming, and that sequence decides whether the finish is tight in eight years or peeling in two. A crew that starts spraying on day one is selling you speed, and you pay for it later.

Washing comes first because everything after it depends on a clean surface. Old siding collects a chalky film as the previous paint's binder breaks down under sun, and new paint over chalk sits on loose powder instead of solid material. The wash has to remove that film, not just wet it down.

Then the surface gets made sound. Loose paint comes off with a scraper until the edges hold when you push at them, and those edges get sanded so the transition between bare wood and old paint is not a visible ridge under the new coat. Failed caulk gets cut out rather than caulked over. Bare wood, patched areas and bleeding knots get primed, because a topcoat is not a primer.

Homeowners are surprised how much of the estimate is labor with no color attached to it. If two bids are far apart, the difference is usually here, not in the paint.

Why exterior paint fails

Paint fails in patterns, and the pattern tells you the cause. Reading them is worth more than any product recommendation, because it tells you whether you need paint, a repair, or nothing.

Peeling that comes off in sheets and shows bare wood underneath is almost always moisture from behind. Find the source before repainting: a gutter running over, a downspout dumping at the foundation, a deck ledger holding water against the siding, a bathroom fan venting into the soffit instead of outside. Repaint without fixing that and the new coat lifts the same way within a couple of seasons.

Peeling that separates cleanly between two layers and leaves old paint underneath is adhesion failure. That is a prep story: the last coat went over something glossy, chalky or dirty.

Not all of it needs a full repaint. A south or west wall takes far more sun than a north wall and often fails first by years. Spot repair on one elevation is legitimate work, and if that is what your house needs, we will say so.

• Alligatoring, a scaly pattern of cracks, means too many coats built up over decades, or a hard coat over a soft one
• Chalking, powder on your hand when you rub the siding, is normal weathering and mostly a washing question
• Blistering in direct sun soon after painting means the surface was too hot or damp when coated
• Rust bleeding through at nail heads means the fasteners need addressing, not more paint over them

The Minnesota painting window

We get a real exterior season with a hard edge on both ends. Most exterior coatings want surface temperatures above roughly fifty degrees during application and cure, and cure is the part people forget. A warm October afternoon does not help if the siding drops into the thirties overnight, because the film is still forming for hours after it stops feeling wet.

Dew point matters as much as air temperature and gets watched less. When the surface cools to within a few degrees of the dew point, moisture condenses on it. Paint applied late on a clear fall evening can sit in condensation before it sets, which shows up later as poor adhesion, streaking or a dull, blotchy sheen.

So we stop exterior work earlier in the fall than the calendar suggests, and start later in the spring than the first warm week. It also shapes the day: east walls in the morning, following the shade around the house, because a wall in full July sun skins over before the coating can level or bond.

If you call in November about exterior painting, the honest answer is usually to wait. Wood exposed all winter can be primed or spot-primed to protect it, and the finish coats go on in spring.

Different surfaces, different preparation

Wood is the most demanding because it moves. Prep means scraping to sound material, sanding the edges, filling splits and nail holes, and priming everything bare. End grain, the cut ends of trim boards and the bottom edges of siding, soaks up water faster than face grain and gets primed carefully. If a trim board has gone soft, paint over it is a cosmetic delay, and the board should be replaced first.

Stucco has to be dry and stable. Hairline crazing is normal and takes coating fine. Cracks wide enough to slip a fingernail into are moving, and they need a material that flexes rather than paint over the top. Efflorescence, the white powder pushing out of the surface, means water is traveling through the wall, and coating it traps the problem.

Metal, meaning gutters, railings, steel doors and flashing, is about rust and gloss. Rust gets taken back to sound metal and primed with a primer intended for the job, because paint over rust keeps rusting underneath. Factory finishes are usually too slick to hold a new coat, so the surface has to be dulled first.

Painted surfaces in good condition still need work. Wash, scuff-sand glossy areas so the new coat has something to grip, spot-prime bare or patched spots, and re-caulk joints that have opened. Skipping the scuff-sand on semi-gloss trim is a common reason a fresh coat peels off in strips.

Interior work and living through it

Inside, the issues are dust, fumes and the fact you still live there. Sanding drywall patches makes fine dust that travels, so we contain it: plastic at doorways, floors covered, vents in the work area blocked so the furnace does not distribute it through the house. Most complaints about interior painting are dust complaints, not paint complaints.

Dry and cured are different. A wall can be recoated in a few hours and still be soft for days. Trim, doors and cabinets are where this matters most, because that is what gets touched, closed and set upon. Pushing furniture back against a wall the same evening is how you get a permanent impression in an otherwise good finish.

Cabinets and doors are their own project. Doors and drawer fronts come off, hardware comes off, everything gets cleaned of cooking grease and hand oils, then sanded and primed. Doors that were degreased and properly prepped look nothing like ones that were wiped down and coated, and the difference shows at the handles in six months.

Interior work goes better in a house that can have windows open, so the shoulder seasons and summer are easier than January. Still, winter is the sensible time to schedule it, when the exterior season is closed, and with containment and airflow it is entirely workable.