Exterior House Painting and Trim Repair

CHALLENGE

A two-story elevation in a dark color is the hardest thing to make look right, and the reason is arithmetic rather than taste. Dark paint over stucco shows every defect the wall has, because there is no light value left to hide behind: a patch that was never textured to match, a hairline filled and not primed, a crack painted over instead of opened. All of it reads from the street on a dark field where it would have disappeared on a pale one. The trim makes it harder, because a dark body puts a hard edge against white fascia, soffit and window surrounds, and a cut line that wanders by a sixteenth of an inch is visible across the yard. And underneath the whole job there is stamped concrete, paver decking and natural stone veneer, none of which can take a drop.

SOLUTION

Preparation first, because on a dark color it is the only thing that decides the result. The envelope is pressure washed and then left to dry. Chalk, mildew and the pollen that coats everything here in spring are a bond breaker, and a wall still holding water blisters weeks after the crew has gone. Tired trim and fascia are repaired or replaced before any coating goes near them — a coating over failed wood hides the failure while it keeps spreading. Cracks and spalled stucco are opened out, filled and textured back to match the wall around them, and failed sealant at windows, doors and joints is cut out and renewed rather than painted over. Then the repairs themselves are primed. That is the step that gets skipped and the one that shows: an unprimed repair reads through the topcoat as a different sheen even when the color matches exactly, and on a dark body it reads from the street. Masking was most of the labour on this house. Windows, doors and hardware covered, the stone veneer protected rather than painted — painting veneer is a decision that cannot be reversed later — and paper run out over the stamped concrete and the paver decking under each elevation as it came up. The cut lines between the dark body and the white trim are run by hand: tape gives a straight line, a steady hand gives a clean one, and at two stories that difference is what somebody sees from the curb. Two full coats over primer where the substrate calls for it, with recoat times read off the can for the temperature and humidity of that day rather than off the schedule. A dark color recoated early stays soft and burnishes wherever anything touches it.

RESULT

A two-story envelope in deep green with white trim, standing on a substrate that was repaired before it was painted: body, fascia, soffit, window surrounds and columns, the pool lanai and rear porch ceilings, the rear elevations, and the garage doors carried in the body color so the front reads as one piece. The stone veneer left natural, and the stamped concrete and paver decking came through it clean. One week on site.