Recently we discussed the big project of painting the exterior of your home as part of preparing your home for sale. When it comes to adding value to your home, exterior improvements such as painting will net you a high return on investment at sale time, so it is a project that is worth plenty of time. Considering the real estate market in Sydney home staging is one of the surest ways to get top dollar for your property.

Of course, before you begin painting, you’ll want to discuss the project with your home sale team – your selling agent and your home stager. Colour choices are key, and most of us can benefit from having a pro help us to choose the ones most likely to attract a potential buyer. Since home staging professionals spend so much time and money learning what potential buyers are looking for, to have such a professional on your team is important.

We’ve discussed the job of preparing your home for painting previously, so we’ll skip that here. Nevertheless, remember that the time spent in proper prepping will ensure that the end result looks perfect. Now we want to give you a few pointers about the actual painting of your home to make it less daunting.

1. Take Small Bites. Remember to take each side of your home individually and treat each one as a new project. Each side gets a different level of sunshine and weather elements and will wear differently, making your prep work take more or less time on each one.

2. To Spray or Not to Spray? You may imagine that using a paint sprayer is fast and easier. Actually, it is. Unfortunately, the work of masking off all trim and windows and other details that are not to be painted the main house colour can take three times the prep time of painting with more conventional tools. Add the fact that overspray – a fact of life in the spray-painting world — means you’ll need to cover and protect anything within five metres of the house itself, which could be tedious. In terms of time, the good old roller and brush may save you time and money in the end.

3. Paint Finish Counts. You will have a choice of finishes to use on your home’s exterior. In order to make the right selection, you should know that a flat finish can hide a multitude of little flaws. For example, a satin finish may wash better because of its low-key shine, but it will also make it difficult for you to blend in seams, making where you stopped yesterday and where you started today entirely too visible. Talk to your paint retailer and your Sydney home staging expert before you invest in paint.

4. Save the Thrilling Parts for Later. The most visible parts of your paint job – the wide swathes of flat linear surfaces — show up best, so it’s natural to want to get those parts done first. Unfortunately, there are some psychological side effects to doing this part of the work at the outset. If you save the most difficult parts for last, getting them done will be a bit like having a tooth pulled. So, summon up all your discipline and work under the eaves and around windows and doors first. Then you can work on your big finale.

5. Use Your Tools Like a Pro. As amateurs, we sometimes forget to allow our tools to do what they are meant to do. Using your extension ladder to give you a better reach is, of course, the right plan. Unless it is unsafe, failing to climb the next step in order to reach that highest run of weatherboard can leave you with a nasty backache tonight. If you need a longer ladder to comfortably and safely reach the top of the work, then rent or borrow one. Then let that ladder do its job getting you where you need to go.

Also, get yourself a good-sized roller pan that holds plenty of paint so that you won’t need to refill it quite so often. Another handy helper is a roller screen that fits directly into your can of paint so that you can dip your roller, and then use the top of the screen to eliminate excess paint.

If you have chosen to do your own exterior painting, we salute you. Hopefully these tips will help you as you transform your home’s street appeal. Don’t hesitate to talk to your selling agent and the Sydney home staging professional you’ve chosen before you take on the project – they, too, are useful tools that can save you many steps and make the job of selling your home far easier than you’d ever thought it could be.

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