Arkansas is hard on exterior paint. Long humid summers, hard UV from June through September, and a freeze-thaw cycle every winter will find any shortcut a painter took. An exterior job that lasts is about 70% preparation and 30% paint, and that ratio is the whole reason some houses need repainting in five years and others go fifteen.
How we prepare an exterior
Every exterior starts with a wash. Siding collects pollen, mildew and chalked-out old paint, and none of that gives new paint anything to grip. After it dries we scrape and sand every failing edge back to something sound, feather the transitions so they do not telegraph through the finish, and spot-prime all bare substrate. Bare wood gets a primer rated for it. Bare masonry gets a masonry primer. They are not interchangeable.
Then we caulk. Gaps around window and door trim, at siding butt joints, and where dissimilar materials meet are where water gets behind your paint and pushes it off from the back. Good caulk work is slow and unglamorous and it is the single biggest predictor of how long the job lasts.
Surfaces we paint
- Wood, fiber cement, vinyl, aluminum and composite siding
- Brick and masonry, including full-coverage and limewash-style finishes
- Soffits, fascia, eaves and gutters
- Window and door trim, shutters and front doors
- Porches, columns, railings, decks and fences
- Detached garages, outbuildings and workshops
Timing the work around the weather
We watch the forecast more carefully than most people expect. Exterior coatings have a minimum application temperature and a minimum dry time before rain, and pushing either one produces a finish that fails early. Spring and fall are the easiest windows in Central Arkansas. Summer works if we start on the shaded elevation and chase the shade around the house, which is exactly what we do. If a storm moves in, we stop and come back rather than gamble with your siding.
Getting a number
Exterior estimates depend on the size of the house, how many stories, the condition of the existing paint, and how much carpentry-adjacent repair is needed before we can coat anything. We walk the whole exterior with you, point out what we are seeing, and put it in writing. Call (501) 453-3565 for a free estimate.
