Major exterior makeover - Redmond

An Elegant Makeover in the Northwest

Sample progress report from an actual project in Redmond/Fall City WA

This Classic Northwest home is being prepared to go through a major Elegant Makeover. This house belongs to one of our all time favorite clients who we have known for many years. We painted the interior about 6 years ago and refinished the decks in 2009. Now it is time for the exterior to go through what we like to call…..An Elegant Exterior Makeover!

Power washing

Power washing was completed on June 3, 2013. We were able to remove a large number of bee’s nests and massive spider webs. We also removed any of the previous stain that was in poor shape. Luckily we were able to accomplish this task without any water going inside the house through any of the doors or windows.

Next step of this project begins on June 13th, 2013. Plan is to Mask off all windows, roof, decks, patios, and driveway, and prime all exterior surfaces, including eaves, porch ceilings, dormers, and trim. for this paint job, we will be using an oil based exterior grade primer to seal, protect, bond, and produce a workable surface.

Once the primer is dried, we will have some fun installing window trim on all windows. We will be using 1×4 pre-primed spruce, attached with 3.5 inch 16 gauge finish nails. Then the nail holes will be filled with “HM Ready Exterior” and edges caulked with our Benjamin Moore Morelastic adhesive. At that time, we will go through every square inch of each wall, and fill any cracks, gaps, joints, etc.

Possible color choices

Looks like we will be going with some shade of grey. Like all our exterior projects, we applied several popular Benjamin Moore samples for our home-owner to live with for a few days, and view in different lighting, and different times of the day.

Day 1; Preparation

By the end of our first day, we managed to mask all windows, mask roof, front porch, and deck, and apply a coat of oil based primer to about 70% of the house.

Priming complete! Since this beautiful house has never been painted before, we applied one solid coat of oil based primer on every square inch of the siding and eaves.

As always, we did a thorough job of cover-up. So far, zero primer on any plants. We take covering-up very seriously. A flawless and durable paint-job looses all of it’s value if there are drops of paint on plant, decks, or patios.

We used a roof pad to place a ladder on top of the hot tub, this is a piece of plywood with a 4″ sponge glued on the bottom to spread the weight and protect the surface.

Day 2; Rain….and window trim.

By the end of day #2, we managed to install trim on about 70% of the windows, and unmask front windows. The rain finally stopped by the end of the day, allowing us to finish priming the siding 🙂

Caulking

Once primer was dry, we went through every square inch of the siding and caulked any imperfections. Caulking must be done after primer. Similar to paint, caulking materials adhere better to primer than they do to the previous finish. These imperfections include cracks, nail holes, dents, bumps, bruises, or anything else that might allow the wood surface to hold moisture. Butt-joints are not caulked to allow the siding to move freely in changing temperatures. The only time we caulk butt-joints is when it has been done previously and we have no choice but to repeat the mistake.

Day 3; More rain….

Window trim Installation is complete and colors have been selected. 100% chance of rain tomorrow….We cleaned up well knowing we will be rained out tomorrow and are now hoping to complete most of the painting on Friday and Saturday.

Day 4; Painting

We finally had some nice weather and made some great progress. We now expect to finish this project on Monday June 24th. Plan for Saturday: finish the house. Plan for Monday: Finish doors and deck.

Back Rolling

This photo shows how effective back-rolling is. The effect is not just cosmetic. While the sprayer lays the paint on top of the grain, the roller forces it into the grain, making it one with the surface, Making it difficult for the siding to release the paint as time goes on. We believe this method adds 3-5 years to the already durable Benjamin Moore paint job. Corners, where the roller may not reach, are back brushed to make sure all surfaces receive the same treatment.