What is the easiest and cheapest way to paint the outside of the house?

[CrapBag]

Our house is great but the paint is peeling off very badly outside. Ironically I have been driving past this house for years thinking "I'd love to see what its like inside but it could really do with a good paint as its scruffy as hell" and now we have recently bought said scruffy house. Space is worth the scruffiness outside though. In a terrace of 4, all of others have been painted, it does stand out like a sore thumb.

We are on a tight budget as other things need doing (roof in a couple of years, kitchen and bathroom asap) but it is something I would like to look into. As I understand it, scaffolding is from £500-£1000 which is too much for us to pay when really it is just something cosmetic, so we are thinking of doing it ourselves but I have read horror stories about people falling from ladders and badly hurting themselves or worse although I know of plenty of people who have been up ladders doing these things and have been fine.

It also complicates it as we have an extension on the side with a sloping roof and I have no idea how we would be able to paint this ourselves.

Get some quotes - start by asking your neighbours who painted their houses. If the decorators have their own scaffolding, they are likely to be cheaper than someone who has to subcontract the scaffolding.

They won't necessarily all want to use scaffolding either.

Plus you don't have to have it all painted at the same time.

You will,probably have to leave it until spring now as painters won't touch outside work at this time of year and paint won't dry properly below 10c. See if you can find someone with a moveable scaffolding tower as it is cheaper than full scaffold which adds £1800 to the bill when we paint the outside of our house.

Oh we weren't thinking of getting it done now, far too cold and wet. I'm just planning and wondering if it can be done without scaffolding up.

We've just done our first floor flat ourselves. Well, I say "we" but mainly DH... We have a 2 stage ladder that got him to a foot or so up above the window ledge, we could paint some from the balcony and other bits from the (flat) roof, and the last bits were done with the brush duct taped to a broomstick! He said he got more confident up the ladder as he did more.

We painted the wall below us too as they have no access and it's our garden. Just one side of the house is painted, plus the steps up to our main door and it took ages. Pressure washing, filling some dodgy mortar and painting one coat onto brick. But saved a fortune! Paint and mortar alone were getting on for £200.