Painting Your Historical Home is so much more than just painting an old house!
The beauty of historical homes is undeniable, capturing an era of craftsmanship that’s only available at a custom level today. As a result, caring for a home with history requires additional effort. This is something that many homeowners and historical societies are more than willing to do to maintain the building’s historical value and unmatched character. So, when it comes to the topic of how to paint a historic house remember it’s so much more than painting an old house. Your first step is to partner with a professional.
To give you an idea of the process of painting a historical home here’s a peek inside our seven-step approach.
1. Inspect Your Historic Home
With its decades — or centuries — of history, your home likely shows signs of its age. Remember, this is about so much more than painting an old house. One of the most frequent issues is wood rot, which is a natural, organic process that spreads at a rapid rate when left untreated. A few types of wood rot are found in homes and include soft, wet, and dry rot. Dry rot is the most severe and wet rot the most common.
In historical homes, your trim, windows, and doors are often the most susceptible to wood rot because they’re usually without the appropriate protections. Consequently, this leads to damage from moisture and fungi. That’s why our team focuses on inspecting those areas when looking into renovating and painting your historic home. If we do find wood rot, we show you, so you know what to look for in the future.
2. Determine Your Historic Home’s Era-Specific Materials and Building Principles
Checking for wood rot is an essential step in how to paint a historic house because if you have to replace your trim — and paint that trim — it’s best to do it when you’re already planning to re-paint your home. Acquiring new trim for your windows, doors, columns and other features of your home’s exterior is not as simple as it is for modern homes. Today, it’s unheard of for companies to manufacture trim pieces in bulk that match the sizes common to 19th, and 20th-century structures.
That’s why custom fabrication is a necessity for historic homes, and also why it’s critical to choose a provider that’s familiar with caring for homes with history. Many will overlook that aspect of trim sizes and deliver lumber sizes that take away the history of your house and leave a result that’s far from satisfactory. With our approach, we look at the building principles and materials that define your home and its era, as well as that period’s color schemes.
Obviously, this is not a concern if you are just painting an old house.
3. Fabricate Your Historic Home’s Replacement Exterior Pieces
It’s a labor of love to restore historic homes to their former glory. Furthermore, fabrication of custom exterior pieces to replace original ones affected by wood rot is often required. For us, it’s incredibly satisfying. This is why you want to partner with a company that shares your love of history and understands that your house is more than a place to eat and sleep — it’s an heirloom in your community.
4. Clean and Prepare Your Historic Home’s Surface
What comes after all that prep work for painting and restoring a historic home? A few more preparations. In our process we clean your home’s exterior from top to bottom:
- removing chipped paint
- re-glazing window panes
- and so much more
Because of the delicate nature of historical homes we take off your home’s paint through hand-scraping, which is more labor-intensive but protects your home from damage — and that’s our priority.
5. Install Your Historic Home’s Custom-Fabricated Pieces
After cleaning and preparing the surface of your historic home, as well as fabricating your custom trims, we undertake the task of removing and replacing your exterior pieces. Our team completes every replacement with care, ensuring the integrity of your building from start to finish. We also make sure to leave your property neat and tidy, free of all our materials, hardware and tools.
Remember to keep this project more than just ‘painting an old house’ take the job of restoring your historic home seriously.
6. Review Your Historic Home’s Prepared Surface
We follow a much different process when it comes to painting homes, whether they’re modern or historical. While many companies will prep, paint, and leave, we prepare your home for painting and then give you the chance to look it over.
If you like what you see, our team will go ahead with painting your home — but if you have questions or requests, we will help you without delay.
7. Paint Your Historic Home
Only after you give us the thumbs-up does our team go ahead with painting your historic home in a palette that reflects its period and meets your approval.
All our exterior services include a warranty.
Get Expert Guidance From Local SD Painting
At Local SD Painting, we’re a leading painter for historic homes in San Diego. We know the process inside and out, forward and backward, delivering a restoration and paint job that captures the history of your home’s era — which is why many homeowners choose to trust us when it comes to caring for their historic home. When you’re looking for historic home painting and restoration in the San Diego area, look no further than our full-time team.