Exterior painting

The inside was finished in July 2015 and the tenants moved in as the end of that month. Tasmania’s colder winter of 2015 passed and spring and summer arrived. Time to start on the outside of the house.

On  our house we used an Australian paint called Rockcote. It has weathered fairly well but I have to go to Hobart to get it or pay freight costs. We found a brilliant product locally from New Zealand called Resene Paints They are totally VOC free and committed to the environment. They make a wide range of products and in New Zealand have a very large market share. We used it internally and found it to be very good so decided to stay with it for the outside.

Below are photos of the transformation. We have not finished yet but it is getting there.

The West wall was stripped of paint twenty years ago and had nothing done to it since. We replaced a number of rotting, split weatherboards; scraped off the remaining paint which had been left on the bull noses of the weatherboards and on the bathroom extension in very poor condition, and then treated the bare timbers with a Resene product called Timberlock . “Resene TimberLock  preserver/conditioner timber treatment – exterior – solventborne
Resene TimberLock is a multi-functional timber treatment designed to increase the water, fungal and U.V. resistance of the wood surface itself, improving the performance of subsequently applied finishes. A penetrating material, it also has the ability to regenerate wood fibres laid bare by U.V. and weather attack and re-build them into a wood-like material”

west wall before

under coat and start of first top coat

The front of the house paintwork was in better condition. yes it actually had paint on it. We washed with sugar soap, scraped back what we needed to and sanded with an orbital sander before undercoating. What a major difference.

front house original

front top undercoated

front undercoated

front first top coat

Mandy has since gone up the ladder and painted all the timber in “Wallaby” a colorbond colour that matches the gutters and facias.

The East side needs to be stripped right back to timber as it has suffered from the ravages of the weather and the paint is peeling. When we stripped our house we purchased a Swdish Stripper, The I-Strip, which is an infra red heater that runs along a rail. Yo can find all the info at our other blog www.greentasreno.wordpress.com at greentasreno.wordpress.com/2009/03/24/a-swedish-stripper-from-new-zealand/ The only difference now is that i use a german engineered tungsten carbide blade to scrape off the paint. It works very well indeed and makes a horrible job a little easier.

contrast between old, new and stripped

The back extension has had a first coat of Resene Lumberside “Biscotti” which sounds a bit better than biscuit!