This home remodeling paint job in New Smyrna Beach is still a work in progress in the photos below. The front porch gable had been opened up to the framing, then closed back in with new plywood siding. Painting it is the step that follows.
We are showing it anyway, because the middle of a remodel is when most homeowners have questions. What happens between bare framing and a finished color? Both photos are labeled as in progress. Finished photos of this house are not on the site yet. If you want to see how a similar job turned out, browse the project portfolio or call us and ask.
- Location
- New Smyrna Beach, FL
- Property
- Brick home with a covered front porch
- Surfaces
- Porch gable siding, soffit and fascia
- Work shown
- In progress only
In progress photos
Neither photo shows finished work. They show the gable open to the framing, then the new siding up before primer and paint.
When should the painter come in on a home remodel?
Before the carpenters finish, not after. Line up a painter while the new siding or trim is going on, so the bare wood gets primed quickly.
In the first photo the gable is open to the rafters, with the brick walls and porch columns below still in place. In the second, new plywood panels close it up under the roof edge. That fresh wood is at its best the day it goes up. Every week it sits unpainted in Volusia County sun and rain, the surface fibers gray and loosen, and they have to be sanded back before primer will grip. In a coastal town like New Smyrna Beach, salt in the air speeds that up.
Bringing the painter in early also means one walkthrough covers everything the remodel touched. The new gable, the existing trim and the porch get priced together, not as three separate calls. Our residential painting covers new work like this as well as full repaints.
How do you make new siding match the rest of the house?
Paint the whole elevation, not just the new part. Fresh paint on only the new panels almost never matches, because the old paint around them has faded.
Even if you still have the original color name, the paint on the house has spent years under UV and salt air. It is lighter now than the day it went on, so new paint in the same formula stands out as a brighter patch. That is why, when new siding goes onto an existing wall, we normally price that whole face of the house from corner to corner. The color then breaks at a corner or a trim line, where the eye expects a change.
On this house the gable sits right above the soffit, fascia and white porch columns. All of those meet the new wood. Painting them together keeps the lines crisp. Our exterior painting page explains the prep in more detail.
Does painting after a remodel cost less than a full repaint?
Usually, but it costs more per square foot than people expect for a small area. Setup and prep cost about the same whether you paint one gable or four.
Ladders, plastic over the landscaping, masking windows and cleaning up at the end are all fixed costs. A gable like this one also sits high, above the porch roof line, so it takes tall ladders and slower, more careful work than a ground floor wall. New wood adds a primer coat that an already painted surface may not need. Nobody wants to pay for that setup twice, which is exactly what happens when the painting is booked as an afterthought.
So the estimate lists the surfaces and the coats separately. You can see exactly what the remodel added, and decide whether to repaint the rest of the house while the crew and equipment are already there. That is often the cheapest moment to do it. See more residential projects, or call Robert to talk it through.
Is a remodel leaving you with bare wood to paint?
Call before the carpenters wrap up and we will price the painting alongside it, in writing. Robert answers the phone himself.