How to paint the hilltop house

Q. What kind of paint is best to use on a wood house: Oil, latex, something else?

A. Being taught old school by my professional painter & decorator grandfather, I should say oil based paints, but I think he might even agree that modern top-quality 100% acrylic paints are the way to go nowadays. Mind you top-quality 100% acrylic paints are not cheap.

Q. What techniques are there to give the house an aged look?

A. I think you referring to the art of "Distressed" effects. Takes some practice and skill, and will most definitely add additional time and money to the project.

Q. What other important information should I know before painting a house.

A. Preparation. Preparation & preparation is everything to achieving a high quality paint job that will last for years...

For the most professional and longest lasting paint job (but will add great cost to the project), remove all paint ie Get back to bare wood, then prepare the bare wood for painting - filling cracks, holes, sanding to a smooth finish...

To save some money on the preparation stage you can leave existing paint on (but only the paint that is still well adhered to the wood). Remove all chipped, loose paint. Fill cracks and holes. Sand to a smooth finish, including the existing painted surfaces. Paint any bare wood with wood-primer...

If you encounter any damp, rotten, etc wood during the preparation stage, I highly recommend removing it. When doing so, cut 150mm (6inch) past the last sign of damage ie Get back to good, solid wood. Preferably re-patch with the same wood species.

In my experience in painting my own house over 50 years I only sand when necessary, that is when the paint is loose, or, the surface is glossy. I just repainted some trim on my house that has Semi-Gloss paint. And, I sanded it first. I did this to improve the adhesion of the new paint. But, most of my house has flat paint, and I never sand it unless I'm blending an area where I had to remove some loose paint.

Update, 11/14/13: I re-read this today, including all the posts. It's interesting to see the different opinions about this subject. No wonder you had a question after searching the net.

My take on this is that if you are a perfectionist, you'll decide to remove it all. If you're just painting to resell, you'll scrape the loose off and paint. If you're going to keep it and use common sense, you'll scrape, sand where you need to feather edges for aesthetics, and paint. That's assuming its flat paint. For glossy finishes, you really better sand it to ensure the new paint sticks permanently. Incidentally, I always clean before scraping with Tide and bleach solution and brush hooked to expandable pole, and sometimes with a power washer to quickly knock off loose paint. Also, after sanding, I blow off the sanded surfaces with a blower, or brush it with a big paintbrush, or wipe it with rubbing alcohol or water.

Recently I used the tool below to "sand" the loose paint off my deck before repainting and was very impressed with it's efficiency. I like how it gets down into the cracks between the paint and wood and smooths out the ridges, as well as how quickly its use is. You might want to pick one of these up and give it a try.

Finally, one last tip. You can always do a test by painting a small area, waiting several days, then trying to scrape it off. That's how I learned how important sanding is for glossy paint.