In today’s era of home buying, many prospective buyers tend to seek homes or properties they can buy cheap. Obviously, we all wish to buy our homes cheap, but these buyers have a clear plan to gut the place and customize it to their own liking. What many of these buyers fail to realize is that these cheap homes could be of historical value. Frankly, the structures of these homes have aspects like wood type and age that are considerably different than what we see today. This means that exterior remodeling after buying a home needs to be completely rethought or you could wind up damaging the house’s structure. You can learn more about how to maintain a home of this kind by reaching out to a Painter in Burlington County. This area of New Jersey has a unique amount of historical value and exterior remodeling companies like painters have adapted well to the age of the homes. Below, there are a couple of things to consider when painting your historical home:
- The surfaces accumulate a lot of organic buildup and can be worse than the average because historical sites tend to have long periods of absence. If this is the case, it is important you do not try to solve this issue by painting right on top of it. In fact, you may not even need to repaint, you may just need to tend to the buildup and give it a light scrub and rinse. Avoid using tools like pressure washers because they will likely be more than the surface can handle. You are best off using a brush with softer bristles and a small amount of soap and water. If you go the lazy route and paint over expect it to peel within a year.
- In the Burlington County area, it is not uncommon for homes to reside in dark areas with lots of vegetation around and above. While it certainly makes for some gorgeous scenery and high-quality oxygen, it does have an effect on the surfaces of our homes. What happens is the vegetation steals all the sunlight and creates a dark environment in which mildew can thrive in. I know it sounds funny, but sunlight is vital to the appearance of a home. The positive is that they now make paints that are supposed to be mildew resistant although a simpler solution would be to trim and cut down trees to give your home the necessary sunlight. If you are in a situation where it is less about prevention and more about cleaning/removal, I would use bleach. Bleach can identify mildew from dirt because if it is dirt, it stays that color, if it is mildewing the bleach will turn it white.
- After the surface is clean and you decide you want to paint the home a different color, you should carefully scrape the paint off. While scraping you should try to determine if it is a lead-based paint. If you have no idea then you should get it lab tested, many companies offer these resources in the area. Once you have determined it non-toxic, I would recommend the use of a heat gun to warm up the paint so you can scrape it off more efficiently. It is known that electric tools like sanders and grinders actually do not get it off quicker with older homes.
Hope this is helpful to you in your home remodeling journey!