Telltale Signs It’s Time to Repaint Your Chicago Home’s Exterior
Painting the exterior of your home is an exhausting chore, so you might not want to do it any more often than necessary. While you don’t need to paint your house every year, you might realize that you need to paint your home more often than you would like. In fact, you should paint the exterior of your home about once every five to six years, depending on the weather in your area and the amount of sunlight your house receives. Although there are all sorts of ways to tell yourself that it’s not quite time to have your house repainted, these tell-tale signs will let you know when you really do need to find a residential painting contractor in Lincoln Park Chicago.
Damage to Wood, Stucco, or Other Exterior Surfaces
If you’re beginning to see damage to the exterior of your home, it’s better to fix it sooner rather than later. The exterior of your home provides a barrier of protection against pests, water, and other things that should stay on the outside. Without this protective barrier, the water and pests can damage the inside of your home. Cracks in stucco and holes in wood should be repaired as soon as you notice them. Later, once you’ve filled all of the cracks and holes or replaced any siding shingles, you’ll need to repaint, both for aesthetic and protective reasons.
Moisture and Mildew Stains
There are times when some moisture stains and mildew on the exterior of your house is purely cosmetic. In fact, sometimes you can just wipe away the mildew or moisture. Other times, you might have mildew coming up behind your siding because there’s a larger problem that needs to be addressed. It might not look that bad right away, but if you wait too long, you might have an even bigger problem. Have a painting contractor come out to your house. Not only can we assess what might be causing the damage, but we can also paint over problem areas that just need an extra coat of paint to help seal the exterior of your home.
Cracking, Peeling, or Bubbling Paint
The paint on them exterior of your house might be prone to cracking, peeling, and bubbling paint. Bubbling happens when moisture from inside the house is seeping through the walls and trying to escape through the exterior walls. Bubbling can also be a sign of paint that was misapplied. You need to have a qualified exterior painters go to your house soon so that they can scrape up the old paint and apply a new coat to protect the surface underneath. Paint often bubbles when something is underneath, and if you have peeling and cracking paint, there are surfaces to the exterior of the house that are exposed. You don’t want to wait too long to have the situation taken care of.
Chalk-Colored Residue
If you begin to notice a white, chalky residue when you brush against the house, it’s time to get your house painted. A chalky residue is a sign that you need to have your home painted because that chalk-like film that comes off on your skin and clothes is the binder of the paint, which has begun to deteriorate. The binder has separated from the color, which is why it’s more of a whitish color. The white coloring makes your house look faded, which isn’t great curb appeal, but it also can cause damage to the materials underneath the coat of paint.
Fading Paint
If you’re seeing fading paint, you’re likely seeing it on a side of the house that receives a lot of sunlight. The sun is notorious for leaving houses looking more white than their original color, but you can fix this easily by simply giving the house a new paint job. When paint is fading, it’s a sign that the protective qualities of the paint are deteriorating as well. Not only will the color be uneven and whitish, but the paint will have also lost the glossiness, which will also make the house look more worn. A couple of coats of paint applied by professional exterior painters will make your entire house look decades newer.
Outdated Colors
While paint has a very practical purpose on your house, it also just makes everything look more fresh and updated. If the colors on the exterior of your house are starting to look old, you should take a look at which colors are currently on trend. Light yellow, off-white, some blues, and dark browns are some of the colors that were in style several decades ago but now make a house look dated and, in some cases, even smaller. You can make your house look much better by choosing a color that’s on trend today. One of the more trendy colors of the past five to ten years includes a medium green that’s somewhat muted, but if you want your paint color to look fresh for years, some classic colors that never seem to go out of style include white, medium tan, medium brown, gray, and white or black for some trims.
You should also pick your paint colors based on the style of the house. The colors that you would use for a ranch-style house that was built in the 1990s is different than the colors that you might use for a Victorian house or a Cape Cod house that’s right on the water. An exterior painting company can help you choose colors that will give the exterior of your home the pop and freshness that you’re looking for.
When you’re looking for a way to protect your home and make it look more inviting, you should get a new paint job on the exterior. When you talk to Fine Painting, we can help you choose paint colors that will look great on your home. We can also help you determine if there’s underlying damage to the exterior of your home so that everything is fixed and the inside of your house is protected from damage. Give us a call today so that we can find out more about how we can help.