I’ve been painting my house, the exterior, all of it. I’m about halfway done right now. It’s a big job, but a do-able one at that. I think painting is easily the best way that a homeowner can save some serious money by doing the work yourself. It’s not that painting is super easy, or idiot proof, it’s just not that hard to learn how to do it. The hardest part is probably getting to reach everything, especially when it’s twenty-thirty feet up. You’ll have lots of up and down ladders, lots of grunting and groaning about getting to old for this, but other than that, it’s not that bad.

I have found two products that make all the difference in the world. The first is the Palm Rider paint container by Encore Plastics. It’s a super simple, cheap pail that holds about a quart of paint at a time. It’s shaped just right to fit the palm of your hand, and hook over between your thumb and forefinger. It’s really very comfortable to hold. There’s a side holder for the paint brush as well as a straight edge to wipe off excess paint from your brush. It makes climbing a ladder with paint very easy, and is a thousand times better than holding a full gallon or holding a quart can of paint. It cleans up easily as well. They make liner for them so you can really clean quickly, but I think that’s a little unnecessary.

The second is using absorbent drop cloths. We have a full line of sizes, and I think I used them all. I really like the runners that are 4’X15’ give or take. These have an absorbent material that’s like a super-duper paper towel with a plastic backing so they don’t soak through. They’re thousands of times easier to use than plastic drop cloths. Plastic ones, blow all over, don’t unfold easily, and smear paint. These work like a real nice canvas drop cloth, at much less cost, and much less weight to lug around. They truly make painting much more enjoyable.

One more thing: Put samples of paint on your house before you decide on a final color! Buy two-three-four, however many quarts it takes and put the colors on all sides of your house. I thought picking a color would be easy. I had a color in mind already. But, guys, you know how it is being married; you cannot just go with your color. So we chose about eight possible colors. I used our Ace Paint Pods for four of the colors (these are only interior paint, so I don’t recommend them for outside. Paint them on a large piece of white paperboard, or similar then hold that against the house) none of the four colors looked good. We tried three quarts of different colors and that made the decision much easier. Colors really, really will look different on your house, in the sun than on a color chip. A little extra effort will make living with the color you pick much easier! Oh, by the way, we ended up with the color I had chosen originally!

I’ve got the rest to finish this weekend. I’ll let you know how it all turns out.

-Clark