Home Repainting: How to Prioritize Painting Projects

In order to maintain your home’s integrity, beauty, and value, you must invest in preventative care and renovations at certain intervals. Repainting your home’s surfaces is part of this home improvement equation. Unfortunately, home painting projects can be time-consuming and expensive -- even if you want to slap on a fresh coat of paint to every exterior and interior surface, you might not have the financial or temporal resources to get it done. Generally speaking, though, repainting your entire home at once isn’t necessary. Certain areas might need more attention than others depending on their current condition and appearance, age, and so forth. The key to a successful and optimized repainting project is identifying which parts of your home should take priority over others.

Let’s go over how to prioritize painting projects so you can get the best results without breaking the bank or ignoring important details.

What Priorities to Have for Home Painting

Necessity vs. Desire

The first step in prioritizing your paint project is drawing a distinction between what needs to get painted and what can wait (even if you want to repaint it). Your house exterior may require a fresh coat of paint more frequently than your interior surfaces because your home’s face is exposed to the elements (i.e. wind, rain, snow, dirt, debris, etc.). Depending on the siding you’ve chosen for your home, you might want to repaint your exterior every 4-5 years or so (i.e. wood, aluminum, and stucco siding). Newer types of synthetic siding and painted brick exteriors might last 10-20 years before requiring a new coat of paint. Of course, if you live in a temperamental region, these rules of thumb might not hold as much weight --to keep your exterior well-protected you may have to repaint it every 2-3 years.

In terms of necessity, interior surfaces and rooms should be repainted at different rates as well. Low-traffic areas like bedrooms and living rooms might not need repainting for 7-10 years, while hallways, kitchens, and bathrooms might need a new coat at twice this rate (i.e. 3-5 years). Again, this frequency is dependent on the amount of use you get out of a room and how much damage its paint job undergoes. Ultimately, you want to prioritize the surfaces and rooms that feature loose, faded, peeling, and/or damaged paint over areas that you merely want to touch up or change their color for aesthetic reasons.

Timing Is Everything

When planning a home repainting project, note that not everything is under your control. The time of year and weather can nudge the direction of your project a particular way, for better or worse. For instance, the spring, summer (unless it’s too hot), and fall tend to offer the ideal conditions for exterior house painting while the winter gets in the way. During the winter, however, interior house painters can still get to work, granted they use low- or zero-VOC paints. If you need to invest in repainting, then, the current season and conditions might force you to prioritize exterior painting over interior painting, or vice versa.

Additionally, your scheduling needs can help you better prioritize your project. You might be more or less busy during a particular time of year or time of day. If you want to be around while painting takes place, you’ll want to schedule your services accordingly. Also, a large project might be too time-consuming for your schedule, so you may need to break up your repainting regimen into smaller chunks spread out over time.

Ordering Your Operations

Home repainting often (though not always) goes hand in hand with other renovations and decorative improvements. Sometimes it isn’t clear which project should come first. For example, if you want to totally redesign your living room with a new coat of paint, new furniture, new decor, etc., you might struggle to determine which aspect of this to tackle first. Ultimately, the decision comes down to you. You might order your new furniture and decor before painting the room to inform your paint color decisions. Or, you might paint your room before decorating it to inform the furniture and decor you decide to purchase. These decisions might be made simultaneously, as well. Just keep in mind that a fresh coat of paint is only one component of your home’s overall appearance, and that other elements will interact with said paint job in certain ways.

Balancing Your Budget

Saving money is always a top priority for any home renovation. If you, like most people, are on a budget, you’ll want to base your repainting decisions around what you can afford at the current moment. A total home makeover might be outside your price range, and, as previously mentioned, not necessary in the first place. By looking through the lens of hard numbers, you might discover that the most practical route is to simply repaint one or two rooms that haven’t been touched up in a long time. Even this seemingly minor improvement can transform your home’s appeal. And after this project is complete, you can begin saving for the next one.

It’s worth noting that you can also save money in a few key ways. First, hiring local house painters over national companies will often yield you more leverage and better starting prices. Additionally, waiting until winter to tackle interior painting can shave some dollars off your project due to the decrease in demand in painting services at this time. Also, make sure you compare quotes from multiple painting services before hiring one. And don’t immediately jump to the lowest bidder either, because they might not offer the same level of quality or accountability as a slightly more expensive provider.

Maximizing Your Home’s Value

If you’re planning on selling your home in the near future, your new top priority should be maximizing your home’s market value. In this instance, a total home makeover might actually be in order. At the very least, it’s important to refresh and emphasize your property’s curb appeal to capture as much attention and demand as possible. Don’t ignore your interior surfaces, either, of course. Interested buyers will pay close attention to all of your rooms, especially your kitchen and bathrooms, the colors of which can make or break a home sale. Local painters can fill you in on regional color trends (for exteriors and interiors) that will boost your home in the rankings.

Prioritize Your Painting Project

Repainting your home isn’t as simple as we all wish it was. There are so many factors that affect how we tackle this type of project, and why, from necessity to weather to finances, and more. Still, if you can get your priorities in order, you can deliver a fresh coat of paint to the parts of your home that need it most given the surrounding circumstances. If you need help straightening all this out, the experts at Nash Painting are here for clients in Nashville, Brentwood, and Franklin, TN.

To learn more about us, our services, and our values, call us at 615-829-6858 today!