Getting ready to sell your home? Does your house need fresh paint?

Selling your home? Suggestions from a professional painter.

The basics: Choosing a color for your home. Choose a classic or neutral color-scheme and if you can, hire a professional to help you stage your house and choose complimentary colors. If you want to go it alone then choose colors that are not going turn off a large portion of the buying market. Chances are a new home buyer will repaint their bedroom and the kids room or add an accent wall here and there so there is no reason to try to paint the walls in these rooms under the assumption that they will never need to be painted again. That goes for the exterior as well as the interior. Consult a professional, for no additional cost, you can have an hour with a professional color consultant at your home, just ask Eric Welch Painting how. It’s not fun to pick neutral colors or paint over your red accent wall but chances are neither is selling your home and the goal is make a sale. Offer a clean slate for all the new, possible home owners, offer a blank canvas, one free from faults and clean. Something that a new buyer will appreciate and not be distracted by. Do not limit potential home buyers with loud colors. Use colors that add depth and light to a room.

Fix cracks, dry wall tape that is pulling away from a seam, and nail-pops. If a hole in the wall was previously fixed and is still visible, make sure to re-patch and match the texture. Use a stain-blocker primer on any water marks. Repaint the trim if it is fading and chipping. Often times window sills are very discolored and will not clean to a bright luster. A fresh coat of paint will make all trim, baseboards and doors look new again. Use Aura from Benjamin Moore, this is the best trim paint that I have found. It will coat in one in most situations and dries to a very smooth, hard surface. It looks great.

Any cracks in the ceiling or chipped paint on the door frames will lower the perceived value of your home. In this competitive buyers market make sure to have your home looking its best. Be smart about where you put your money. Painting your home's interior or exterior in Madison has proven to be one of the most economical ways to add value and curb appeal to a home.

Update on Sunday, April 1, 2012 at 11:28AM by Eric Welch

I get calls all the time from clients that want to fix up their home before putting it on the market. Eric Welch Painting offers a great service in this department. For a much more reasonable cost, we can repaint your kitchen cabinets or fix your entryway walls and repaint your front door. For curb appeal, we can add fresh new color to your exterior in Madison or our painters can make the children's room look new again all while using eco-friendly painting products. 

Do you have peeling and failing paint?

Problems and Symptoms of a failing paint job: Most of the time a failing paint job is obvious to see, by the homeowner and by the passerby. Cracking, peeling, flaking paint. Fading, blistering, hair-line cracks, “alligatoring” and tannin bleed through are all common problems facing the ageing stock of Madison area homes. If the house was built before 1978 then there is a high chance that lead paint is present. There is a higher chance that the exterior has lead than the interior but both are assumed unless paint samples are tested at the State Dept. of Health Services. Testing a sample costs $25 and usually two or more samples are required. Wait time is approximately one week.

Hire a professional painter to take care of and remediate a lead paint problem. A house may have many layers of lead paint and when they start to peel or crack the heavy metal Pb is now a potential health threat. Do not risk the health of yourself or your family. Lead paint dust can be carried inside on your clothes and easily spread to the inside of your home. Remember, there are only two ways that lead can enter your body: through the mouth and through the nose. Was hands and face regularly with soap and water when dealing with lead paint.

As a homeowner you do not need to be certified to do work on an area with lead paint, but if you do I strongly recommend that you follow the same precautions that we do as a certified lead-safe company. It is now the law to disclose if there is lead paint on your property to a potential home buyer. It is the sellers responsibility to remediate all potential lead paint hazards before closing.

What does it take to paint the exterior of your home?

Everything you need to know about painting your exterior and tips from Eric Welch Painting.

Residential Exterior
A contractor needs to be Lead-Safe certified to work on a house with peeling paint if the house was built prior to 1978 (the year lead based paint was banned for residential use.) It is possible to take a sample to the Wisconsin Department of Health Services and test it for lead paint. This usually takes about seven days and costs about $50 dollars. If a paint sample is not tested then it is assumed that lead is present and all necessary precautions must be taken.

Before any prep begins my Madison painters lay plastic and secure it to the ground so it will not blow around. A painter must wear a protective face mask that guards against dangerous particulates and is taught how to stay clean and avoid accidental ingestion of lead dust. Fortunately, the are only two ways lead can enter the body and cause any harm, one is through the mouth and the other is through the nose. Simple right? Yes, but it is very important to be safe as lead contaminates build up in the body’s fat tissue and can effect the brain, especially in children.

Proper preparation often times amounts to many tedious and meticulous hours of scraping. It is the least fun and most important part of every paint job. Hit every angle and take care to go over each area twice. Power-washing of most exteriors that have peeling paint is now not allowed due to the restrictions put in place by the EPA. Power-washing is still useful where the previous paint is still sound and on any house with vinyl or aluminum siding. We will use a power-washer when it is necessary and within the law. Any areas that have mold and mildew, use a bleach/ water mixture of 1 part bleach to 3 parts water. Use sponge or brush to apply or a pump spray canister (easiest method.) 

Cleanliness. We clean up around the house and check to make sure all the surfaces have been thoroughly prepped. Then we dispose of the plastic and haul it away from the job site. Rejoice! The prep is done.

Once the preparation is complete, it’s time to apply the primer. Typically this is done with a brush and by hand. Windows and door frames are almost always primed and painted with a brush but primer will be sprayed if the surface area of the siding is large enough to allow for efficient use. As a side note, high-end, A+ paints often have primer built in to them, aka 2 in 1s. This does not render primer less necessary it just adds to the benefits.

The Final Paint or The Top Coat. The body color will most likely be applied first. If we brush and roll the siding then there will be very little plastic or tape used. Tarps will be laid around the house to cover any concrete and on top of shingles. No Drips. Period. Whether we are painting wood, vinyl, aluminum, clapboard, asbestos, asphalt, composite, brick or stucco, we can paint it and it will last.

We miss nothing. The details are what make an excellent paint job. If you’ve ever been unhappy about a previous painter it is probably because of one or more of the following issues. 1.) didn’t prep right and new paint job is now starting to fail. 2) Paint was not applied in a clean manner, lines are not straight, drips are on the concrete or other woodwork. 3.) The details were neglected. We always focus on the details. The soffits, the facsias, behind the downspouts, the hard to reach places, the very high places and we take the time needed to make them look great. Oh, and those little windows down near the foundation that are half covered by dirt, we get those too.

Eric Welch Painting is the best choice for painters in Madison.

The Greatest Phone Number a Painter Could Have

Eric welch painting has the foremost telephone number in the area code. Serving Madison, Monona, Middleton, Verona, Maple Bluff, Sun Prarie, Cottage Grove, downtown Madison, and Stoughton. If you are in a bind and need a painting professional fast, call 608-Painter. If your paint job has stalled or work has you overwhelmed then call the 608-Painter. No more worries. Eric Welch Painting is happy to take on even the biggest most challenging paint jobs known to man.

The painter with the easiest phone number to remember. Say it once and you'll remember for the rest of your life. 608-Painter.

A fun way to get free and easy painting estimates. Check around the web or my website and find out more about Eric Welch Painting hiring the best painters in Madison, Wi.