How To Increase The Longevity Of Your Paint

Every 6-8 years you are having to deal with getting your home updated with a new coat of paint, and every time you and many others run into the question; how long will this upcoming paint job last? What can be done to make the paint job it last longer, so I don’t have to keep spending thousands of dollars every few years? Both of these are great questions to ask once you’ve decided to renovate or update your home with a fresh paint job. Over the past 25+ years, we have listened to your questions and hope that we can help you out here, after all getting your whole house repainted is no simple task.

How long will my average paint job last?

Before anything, you should know that every paint job is different, and it can vary significantly based on who and how your home is painted. There is often a large difference between what you as a homeowner can do vs a professional painter that has dedicated their lives to making homes beautiful. This is a big reason people often leave the more significant painting projects to the experts like complete exterior repainting or multi-room projects.

But to give you a better idea of how long the average paint job lasts for both interior and exterior paint jobs last around 6-8 years. If you were lucky enough to have a team that spent extra time and an excellent job, then you can expect upwards of 9-12 years. This variation most often will come down to the time they have spent properly preparing your walls and the quality of the paint and how well they applied it.

What Can I Do To Make My Paint Last Longer?

There are many that can be done to increase the longevity of your paint. Often the bests things that can be done to help the paint last longer is to understand them before the process, regarding painting. This way whether you or someone else is painting your home you know what you should expect as a process for prepping your home for the new color.

This is very similar to anything else you would do in life, it is simply that the better you prepare the better the outcome, this is even better if you have the highest quality painters, painting your home. Hopefully, this helps you in making your next decision by breaking both of these topics to give you a better idea of how you can make your next paint job last longer.

How To Prepare The Walls In Your Home:

Getting excellent results from your new paint job it takes more than just choosing some paint and throwing it on the walls. You need to understand the process of preparing the walls of your home and the right tools for the job. Each wall is different so the time to prepare them varies, taking a moment and looking for glaring inconsistencies on the surface of the wall can greatly impact the ending result. Things to look for is dirt or debris stuck to the wall or things like smudges from fingerprints. Taking 10 minutes to clean these will bring you a better end product.

Step 1: Remove all furniture from the room is able

Step 2: Lay down an old blanket or tarp you don’t care about anymore

Step 3: Grab clothes you don’t mind getting dirty

Step 4: Scrape any cracked or flaking paint with a paint scraper. For other small imperfections on the wall such as plaster bumps, smooth them away with sandpaper.

Step 5: Dust and clean the walls. For most surfaces, use a towel or a vacuum cleaner.

Step 5: Pour Paint and grab a brush you’re ready to start painting

Primary Types Of Paint For Your Home:

There are many types of paints that are or can be used when redesigning your home. Below is the high level of views of the various types of paints you will find in your local home depot, lowes, etc.

Primer Paint

Strictly speaking, primer paint is not a true paint it, works as the base coat to better prepare your surface for the new color. Using primer helps the paint stick and stay on the surface, an even better primer is water based, so it is easy to clean up.

Latex Paint

Latex paint refers to water-based paint, even though there is no latex in the paint at all. Whats great about waterbased paint is how easy it is to clean and remove.

Acrylic Paint

Acrylic paint is another name for water-based paint, with the addition of acrylic as the binding agent. Acrylic paint comes in many varieties such as:

• Acrylic Latex
• Acrylic enamel
• Acrylic latex enamel

Oil-based Paint

Oil-based paint is excellent for the exterior painting job; oil paint often creates a stronger and more durable finish. The most significant downsides are that they take longer to dry and are mixed with harsh chemicals.

Note: when trying to removing oil-based paints it requires harsh chemicals, whereas removing water-based paints does not.

Now that you have chosen the type of paint you’ll use and have prepped the walls of your home for your new pop of color, you are ready to paint and bring new life into your home. As you can see the best ways to increase the longevity of your paint actually starts with proper preparation and knowledge of the right materials you’ll need to get the job done. We hope that this has been helpful to you and that you are now able to take the next step in making your home beautiful with a fresh coat of paint.