Whether it’s the interior or the exterior of your home that needs painting, the chances are that you’ve at least toyed with the idea of doing it yourself. After all, how hard can it be? With a couple of ladders, some brushes, and a little paint, you should have the job done in no time, right?
Well, that’s not actually the way it generally works. While house painting may look like something that just about anybody can do, there is a level of skill involved and, even more than that, a whole lot of time.
Many people assume that hiring a house painter is much more expensive than just doing it yourself; and in some cases this is undoubtedly true. But when you consider how many tools and equipment you will need to buy in order to complete the job, you might find that it all adds up pretty quickly, and that in the end it may actually cost you more to do the job yourself. Of course you’ll need to buy all the paintbrushes, rollers, paint trays and – oh yes, the paint! But, you’ll also need to buy things such as ladders for painting ceilings or high walls, scaffolding for exterior multi-storey windows, drop cloths for interior spaces, and all the tape in between. That’s a lot of equipment needed for the job and if you don’t already have it, you could pay a lot of money for it.
The equipment isn’t the only thing that will cost you though. The time involved in a paint job, whether it’s the interior or exterior of your home is enormous. Every good paint job needs at least one coat of primer and then two coats of color, with complete drying time in between. Not only does it span a lot of time, but you have to take it slowly while you’re actually painting. A rushed paint job is going to show through in paint transfers between the walls and the ceilings. A professional painter will display this patience in their work; but they will also come in every single day and devote the entire day to the job, until the work is completely finished. If you do the job on your own however, you will most likely end up doing it only on the weekends that you don’t feel like just relaxing and doing nothing else. Do it this way, and you might find that your paint job is a permanent on-going project.
