Exterior Paint Sheens And Their Use in Painting in West Chester, PA

The process of painting the exterior of your home can be fairly complicated and difficult, and one of the things that play into this is that you need to choose a sheen for the paint that will go on your home.

Though these sheens are often mixed up and people can interchange them, they are not all the same and they have various uses when you are painting your home exterior.

Here are a few different exterior paint sheens and their use in painting in West Chester, PA.

Gloss

An interesting thing that you should realize about paint sheens is that they not only relate to the appearance of your paint but the way that the paint will perform.

Having gloss paint on your home exterior may be ideal for you if you like the notion of making use of a color that is brighter or bolder, as the gloss paints tend to really show off such colors.

High gloss paint tends to have a super shiny surface, almost to the point of being akin to a mirror.

It may be a good idea to use a gloss paint when you know that you’re going to have a surface that will need to be washed somewhat frequently — as gloss paints are easily able to take this kind of treatment.

One downside to gloss paint that people tend to not like so much is that if your exterior has flaws or imperfections, you are going to tend to see these imperfections more easily.

Satin

If you are familiar with the fabric, you may already be somewhat familiar with the texture of satin paint, which is a bit richer in terms of sheen than a purely flat paint but is not quite nearly as glossy as an actually gloss paint.

There are a few things you should know about satin paint, starting with the fact that the finish of satin paint tends to last longer than your average flat paint.

This being the case, you should be careful with the satin paints that you get from the store, making sure that they have been properly mixed either before you take them home or more thoroughly when you are getting ready to paint.

Another technique that some people will employ is to take their paint cans and to mix the paint in a larger container.

Flat

Lastly, a sheen consideration for the exterior of your home is flat — it is by far the roughest and chalky of all of the exterior paints.

Flat paints are excellent in terms of hiding imperfections, and this very thing is what attracts a lot of people to choosing it as they don’t want people to see the small bumps on their home.

They soon come to find that the flatter the paint, the more difficult it ultimately is to clean — it is nearly impossible to clean flat paint.

Some people have compared the process of cleaning flat painted surfaces to smearing dirt on a surface — it doesn’t actually help with the cleaning.

The end result is that you have to repaint the exterior and as it turns out if you have flat paint on the exterior of your home you’re typically going to find yourself painting more often.

Bottom Line

The bottom line is that these various factors and elements are going to have to inform what kind of sheen you are going to use for the exterior of your home.

Bear in mind that if you ultimately are going to want to change sheens in repainting your home, you are going to have to go through a whole different process, which we can discuss in a future article.

Consider hiring a professional painting contractor in West Chester, PA like Left Moon Painting. We have years of experience offering residential repainting services in Kennett Square, PA, and West Chester PA. If you would like to try us, request a FREE estimate below to get started or call us at (484) 757-5295 for more information.

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