House painting can be a tedious task and one that you might want to put off. However, there are some real benefits to updating colors or freshening up the look of your home. There’s no denying the impact of a few coats of paint on curb appeal.
In this article, we’ll look at how often you should paint the interior and exterior of your home and how to complete the job perfectly every time. These tips will give you a good idea of where to start, although there are exceptions.
Painting the Interior
How often you repaint your home’s interior depends on how much wear and tear there is in each room. A formal sitting room might need a touch-up every few years, while your bathroom and kitchen might need repainting more often.
Living and Dining Rooms
Your living and dining rooms typically see less traffic than other rooms in the home. You should be able to wait between five and seven years between paintings.
Kitchens and Bathrooms
Grubby fingers on walls, food marks, steam, and moisture take their toll on family rooms like kitchens, bathrooms, and laundry rooms. You should plan on touching up these rooms every three or four years, even with high-quality paint—using gloss paints might extend the time between touch-ups.
Bedrooms
An adult’s bedroom finish typically lasts far longer than a child’s. In an adult’s bedroom, you could easily wait seven years or longer before updating it. You’re more likely to tire of the color before you have to refinish it.
A satin sheen or eggshell finish will make cleaning your child’s wall easier. However, if your children put grubby marks or draw on the walls, you’ll need to wash them often. You’ll get about two to three years of wear under such circumstances.
Hallways
The hallway is one of the highest-traffic areas in the home. It’s the place most likely to pick up dirt transfer from outside and to have to put up with scuff marks and chips. You’ll want to spruce this area up every two to three years.
Ceilings
Freshening up the ceilings finishes paint jobs, but you don’t need to repaint every time you redecorate. You can count on the surface looking good for around ten years.
Aside from that, the white surface will begin to yellow and show dirt over time, so it might be necessary to touch it up in the meantime. If your rooms look dull, you might also try painting the ceilings as a low-budget hack to brighten them by as much as 20%.
Trim and Baseboards
The interior trim and baseboards might require more attention than the walls. Both collect dust and can begin to yellow with age.
Those in high-traffic rooms show their age the fastest, so you can plan on painting these every two years. You can usually extend this time to four years in a low-traffic space. In the interim, touch up nicks using paint left over from when you redid the trim.
Painting the Exterior
When it comes to house painting, this is the job that most people dread. The home’s exterior is the largest surface, so the prep work is time-consuming. Even if you wash everything down with a pressure washer, priming the surface takes ages.
How often you refinish the exterior depends on the surface, your local climate, and how dusty the area is. The following are good guidelines:
- Aluminum Siding: Once in 5 years
- Wood Siding: You’ll need to touch up unstained wood once every three to seven years, and stained wood once every four years
- Brick: Brick holds the paint the best, and you’ll only need to consider sprucing it up every 15 to 20 years
- Stucco: This hard-wearing finish lasts for around five to six years
- Modern Materials: Materials like cement fiberboard are almost as good as brick, holding up for approximately 10 to 15 years
Take the Hassle Out of Painting
Is it time for a new look? Would you like to make your house look as good as new? Are you trying to carve out the time for painting?
Relax and take a load off because the team at Ellison Painting is here to assist you. Let us do the heavy lifting while you enjoy your time off. Our team works to the highest quality standards, using the top-notch Sherwin-Williams line.
Contact Ellison Painting at (248) 971-2859 for your free estimate on house painting.
