Has anyone painted their own house (exterior)?

[JohnnyMcGrathSaysFuckOff]

I am in no way shape or form a professional, but I do really like painting. I find it therapeutic and satisfying.

We last had our house painted 7y ago. It was done as part of a total re-render of the house so don't know how much it cost separately iyswim, but have always it would be an expensive job to get done.

Has anyone done this? Got scaffolding put up but painted themselves? Any tips/ experiences?

I watched a neighbour do an up and down stairs house from a ladder he's easily late 70s/early 80s was impressive... Sorry not really answering your questions tho.

We're currently doing ours, have bought a lightweight scaffolding frame (which DH can utilise in his business anyway) and using a spray gun.... So much quicker!

Thanks! Yeah I don't like ladders enough to do that 😂 our front area is not exactly even so wouldn't be super safe and I have preschooler twins who can't be trusted not to jostle it.

Any problems hiring scaffolding as a retail customer?

@CombatBarbie

We're currently doing ours, have bought a lightweight scaffolding frame (which DH can utilise in his business anyway) and using a spray gun.... So much quicker!

Ooh. Can I ask what paint you’re using? We have an outdoor brick wall planned to paint as a mural for playgroup, and I’d assumed it was too cold still to get started.

I did this last summer because the previous, professional job was crap and cost 2k. It was bloody hard work and I spent a lot of time prepping because we have original sash windows with a wooden rather than stone outer frame. The painting bit was a doddle if you’ve got proper scaffolding.

We have upvc frames and the render is still in really good condition so would just need a light sand.

We are painting the garden wall atm with Armstead Trade Paint and it seems to be going fine! 11-12 degrees with a light breeze.

Did you prime the garden wall first? I’m really grateful for any advice.

Yep 2 Summers ago.. i'd say it pays to spend extra £s on a really good quality paint, and dont scrimp on prepping.

Welcome no but it was already painted so just sanded and went!

Yep, we painted our previous house 5 years ago. It was a cottage with wooden weatherboard cladding, so bl**dy hard work with all the prep - lots of sanding, priming etc. Appreciate you're asking about render though.
We hired a scaffolding tower which we assembled ourselves and moved around as we progressed. It was manageable but the cottage wasn't very tall, so the tower was on a smaller side, larger ones might be more challenging to handle. Glad we did, I wouldn't have braved the ladders. Even with the hire of the tower, our all-in costs were a fraction of the amounts we were quoted for the job (well, not counting our time ).

Thanks! What counts as good paint? The budget isn’t huge, and we’d like strong bright colours if possible.

We are using Armstead which is a trade brand I think. We have a Dulux trade outlet place close to us who also serve retail customers and that is what they sell. It seems nice quality.

Yes. We hired a cherry picker for a week, plus borrowed a scaffolding tower and had some structured ladders so that . 1900 ish house with old patched concrete render plus new extension with brand new render. The old render which needed to be scrubbed with anti fungicidal stuff and then rinsed, plus new render which needed to be primed first of all. Then two coats of paint all over the house.

It took my husband 9 days to do (all the prep, masking windows and doors, all the painting, large 4 bed house with some fiddly bits - hence the cherry picker). I helped out at weekends around the kids on the low level stuff - we decided I wasn't at my best 60 ft up in the air on the cherry picker. It wobbled...

Get decent paint (Dulux Trade Weathershield for us), make sure you have enough, plenty of brushes etc, you don't want to have to down tools and get more half way through. Check the life on your paint - ours suggested that it would last for 20 years, even if we assumed 15, it was still longer than other paint brands suggested.

General points - Check your weather conditions, we had to down tools for 2 days as the wind was too strong to allow the cherry picker to go up safely. Mask your windows and patio doors off, preferably with plastic - the paint will spray onto the glass. Try to avoid rain obviously. Hiring a scaffolding tower shouldn't be an issue for you, have a look on FB Marketplace as you may be able to pick one up cheaply and sell it on afterwards which may work out cheaper for you than hiring. Check the height of your house and where you will need to reach to to paint - we had chimneys and a single story extension down the side of the house, with render above it on the main house, hence the cherry picker.... and make sure that you have the right height of scaffolding. Plan your painting, you may have to make good some of your render as you go, there will be a drying time to this before you paint etc, obviously this will need to be done first before painting etc.

We saved at least £10k through doing it ourselves, and probably nearer £15k, if we'd gone through the builders who did our extension / renovation. Entirely possible to do it yourselves with minimum DIY experience and it's very satisfying to see the house change colour as you go.

I also used Dulux trade Weathershield (dark pink )

@WelcomeMarch we're using Tikkirula masonry paint...obviously tracking weather as we do it.

I was very impressed with my neighbour who done it himself with ladders... late 20's even wore a bike helmet up the ladders which gave me a giggle

We’re planning to do ours with just the ladders but we’re in a terrace so just the front. Bought fluid weathershield (the gold tub) after using it in the garden and it’s held up really well. £60 for paint and a few brushes. If you can get up on a ladder or scaffolding I wouldn’t dream of paying someone else for just a paint job.

Yes, I do the bottom OH does the top with a ladder. I could never pay someone else to do that.

Brilliant, thanks all! (Dark pink may well be a good option amongst others.)

Bookmarking. This is very useful as we’ve had insane quotes. Thanks!

Did ours. Hired a scaffold tower and bought Farrow and Ball masonry paint plus some brushes. Mid-terrace in London. Cost us about £200 all in. I would imagine that we saved at least £1000.

Jellycat, what’s the deep pink paint called? I’m only finding quite muted colours!

We knew our house, which is entirely rendered, would need the exterior painting every few years when we bought it so DH bought himself a scaffolding tower at the time. He is in his 60's and has painted it several times in the last 30 years, most recently last summer. It is hard work but he takes it one wall at a time and the cost is very low as if you buy the paint a few tubs at a time you don't notice you are paying for it (we share the cost.) I suspect it would have cost about £2k to get it done by professionals, we'd rather hire a painter and decorator for the complex bits indoors. DH is trained in working at heights and one benefit is the lovely comments he gets from the neighbours and passers by as he climbs the tower and does things most of us would be a bit scared about.

Thanks all! So I would be concerned about using a scaffolding tower as we would have to assemble ourselves and bad if we made a mistake, and also, we have a single storey extension on one side and might be hard to access the first storey from a tower. Think we'd need actual scaffolding.

However assuming even with that cost, it would be cheaper.

My neighbour two doors up was painting their house today with a roller on a long pole.