When it comes to buying a house it's always location, location, location. When it comes to painting the exterior of your house it's always preparation, preparation, preparation. Or at least it should be. A wise man once said "If you fail to prepare then prepare to fail".

This is so true of painting your home - rushing things or cutting corners is really going to cost you in the long run. The usual result of no preparation is a sloppy finish that winds up having to be done redone. How much work you have ahead of you is down to the condition of the house itself - it will vary from one job to the next.

There are plenty of power tools out there to help you with preparing the outside of your home for painting but when it comes down to it you're going to wind up using good old manual labor to get the job done. All that scraping and tearing and sanding will be worth it in the end. The sweat that you put into preparing the house will give you a result that's well worth it.

Peeling paint and mildew (mold caused by dampness) are the main things you need to look out for when prepping the outside of your home. Any peeling paint will need to be removed. Any mildew spots will need to be cleaned and then the surface underneath treated to stop the problem coming back. If you don't treat mildew properly it's guaranteed to bubble up underneath your newly painted walls and ruin all your hard work. If you have aluminum siding on your house then all you'll need to do is give it a good clean and maybe sand down any really rough spots.

Once you've scraped away the worst of the damage (if there is any) then it's time to sand the surface. But before you start sanding anything you're best served to give the walls a wash down first. You can use a pressure washer to do this but you need to be really careful because some of them are powerful enough to actually cause damage to wooden surfaces. Usually using a garden hose is enough for the cleaning job.

Always make sure the surfaces are completely dry before you begin sanding. How long will it take for them to dry? It depends on the time of year and hours of sunlight per day. If you want to be completely sure then use a moisture meter to measure how damp the wooden surfaces still are.

The areas you want to pay most attention to with your sanding tools are any spots that had peeling paint or mildew. These are the spots that could ruin the final finish so make sure they're sanded and treated properly before you move ahead with your painting plans. Just make sure you totally clean off any dust left behind after sanding - otherwise you'll wind up with it mixed into your paint.

Now that you've done all of the hard prep work you can get on with the easy bit of the job.....the actual painting!