Painting the exterior of a home can be pretty time consuming. Most exterior surfaces, like stucco, are rough and they require extra coats of paint to get complete coverage. Extra coats means extra time spent painting. However, many people speed up the process by renting a professional pneumatic spraygun. This allows you to paint rough surfaces much more evenly and quickly. If you do use a spraygun, you need to do a little more prep work to mask off and protect against overspray. This article explains how to properly mask off your exterior in preparation for spraying it with a pneumatic gun.

What You Need

If you adequately mask off your exterior, you can greatly speed up the painting process. The most important supplies you will need to mask off your exterior are .3 millimeter thick painters plastic, 2" wide painter's tape, 1" wide painter's tape, and red rosin construction paper. To be safe, buy a little more than you think you will need, because you will probably end up using it and it is better to be safe than sorry. In the end, you can easily return any unused supplies, but you don't want to slow down your project by having to return to the store just to buy a little more tape.

Using the Painter's Plastic

First, you should cover all of your window and door fixtures using tape and painter's plastic. You can stretch the plastic tight over the fixtures. You don't want to leave it too loose, or else it could get caught in the wind and stretched out. You can use the 1" wide tape to tape off around the window and door frames exactly where you want the paint line to be. Then, use the 2" wide tape to attach the plastic to that tape. If you have an overhanging roof with different colored trim that you want to protect, you can also drape the plastic over it. The plastic is also great for covering random things along the side of your house like the air conditioner, trashcans, and flowerbeds.

Using the Construction Paper

Now, use the construction paper to cover all of the pathways and concrete around the walls you are painting. This works much better than plastic for covering the floors. It is safer and less slippery to walk on than plastic. Tape the paper to the concrete with the 2" wide tape.

Once your area is properly masked off, you can being to spray without worrying about overspray. If, however, you've decided you'd rather have the professionals take care of this job, contact a company like Purser's Professional Painting & Pressure Cleaning.