How a home’s exterior looks is important for a variety of reasons. A well-painted house with a thoughtfully chosen color scheme and proper paint selection has many benefits. An attractive exterior can add to a home’s curb appeal (and ultimate value), as well as allowing a homeowner to create a certain “look” for their home that they enjoy. On the other hand, a poorly painted house (both with color selection and paint selection) can make a house look shoddier and more run-down than it actually is. So, what is the best exterior house paint?
How to Choose the Best Exterior House Paint
If you’re deciding to repaint the exterior of your home, the actual paint you choose is extremely important! In this article, we’ll talk about a few things you want to consider in choosing an exterior paint, as well as sharing our picks for the best exterior house paints for a variety of materials or desires.
Here are all the things to consider when choosing exterior paint for your home:
How Much Paint Do You Get?
There are many things you’ll want to consider when choosing your exterior house paint. Figuring out how much paint you need will help you formulate a budget and select a properly priced paint.
Properly estimating how much exterior paint your house will need is a little bit tricky, but a decent general rule of thumb is that for houses from 0-1500 square feet, you will need 1 gallon of paint for every 150 square feet of living space.
Above 1500 square feet, 1 gallon will cover 200 square feet.
Just as an example, for a 3000 square foot house, a good estimate would be about 22-23 gallons of paint. Of course, this is just a rough estimate, as actual needs will vary house-by-house.
For this reason, you should consider working with a professional painting company.
In Denver, Colorado, Colorado Painting has been around for over 37 years and has a wealth of experience to draw on.
Where Do You Live?
Another important thing to consider when deciding what exterior house paint to use is the environment you live in.
Harsher environments – ones with wind, rain, snow, or excessive heat (like Colorado) will require a more durable house paint than a home in a city with less extreme weather.
A home in Denver is exposed to significantly different weather patterns than a home in San Diego; as such, optimal paints for homes in either city will differ.
What’s Your House Made Of?
A third key factor for deciding the best exterior house paint for your home is the material your home is made of.
Will you be painting on wood, brick, stucco, or vinyl?
Different paints will be better with different materials.
Paint Durability
Paint durability depends on a few different things.
Top-of-the-line latex and acrylic paints all tend to be extremely durable, as they will use significantly higher-quality ingredients than lower-quality or oil-based paints.
Additionally, the number of coats you apply will also impact the durability, which is why it is a relatively common practice to apply more than 1 coat of paint to the exterior of a home.
Making sure that your exterior is painted to be durable is extremely critical, otherwise, you will find yourself needing to repaint your home sooner than anticipated.
Best Exterior House Paints: All Categories
Now, we’d like to share our picks for the best exterior house paints for certain categories:
Best Overall Exterior House Paint: Sherwin Williams Duration Exterior Acrylic Latex
Sherwin Williams Duration Exterior Acrylic Latex is our choice as the best overall exterior house paint for a few reasons.
It is one of Sherwin Williams’ top paint lines, and has been designed to be extremely durable and resist cracking, peeling, and blistering.
Additionally, it is self-priming and only needs 1 coat to pre-painted wood or two coats to bare wood. It is available in well over 100 different color options & can be applied in temperatures down to 35 degrees Fahrenheit.
All of these factors mean Sherwin Williams Duration Exterior Acrylic Latex paint is a strong, durable paint that will go on your house fast.
Best Exterior House Paint for the Budget-Conscious: Benjamin Moore Ben Exterior Paint
Benjamin Moore ben Exterior paint is a great choice for the Budget-Conscious DIYers. It delivers dependable performance and a fantastic end product while having very forgiving application properties.
This makes it extremely desirable for DIYers that are budget-conscious but still want a beautiful end product.
Best Exterior House Paint for Durability: Benjamin Moore Aura Exterior Paint
Benjamin Moore Aura Exterior Paint is one of the most durable exterior paints out there. Benjamin Moore’s Color Lock technology makes this paint extremely resistant to fading.
This self-priming paint has superior adhesion to all exterior materials, and offers outstanding durability against all weather conditions, no matter how harsh.
Best Exterior House Paint for Wood Siding: Sherwin Williams Emerald Exterior Acrylic Latex
Sherwin Williams Emerald Exterior Acrylic Latex is a great choice for wood siding. It is a self-priming paint (only 1 coat necessary!) that produces a smooth, flat coat that can conceal any imperfections in wood siding.
Additionally, it’s built to resist cracking, peeling, and blistering, and is extremely easy to apply.
Best Exterior House Paint for Vinyl: Sherwin Williams VinylSafe SuperPaint
Vinyl used to be very tricky to paint: you either had to match the color or go lighter, otherwise your substrate would buckle. Now, however, Sherwin Williams offers 100+ VinylSafe colors that you can apply worry-free.
Choosing a VinylSafe color on Sherwin Williams’ renowned exterior SuperPaint will give you a paint that will go on easily, protect your vinyl, and maintain exceptional color and durability.
Best Exterior House Paint for Stucco or Brick: Behr Interior/Exterior Masonry, Stucco, and Brick Paint
Behr Interior/Exterior Masonry, Stucco, and Brick Paint is a great choice for Stucco or Brick. It provides an alkali and mildew-resistant finish, which is ideal for weathered stucco or brick exteriors.
It has a durable satin finish and offers excellent adhesion specifically for stucco, brick, or concrete.
If you’re looking to get your home professionally re-painted in the Denver, Colorado area, there is no better company to work with than Colorado Painting.
We pride ourselves on only using high-quality, top-tier paint, such as many of the paints listed above. Learn more with our guide on how to pick exterior paint colors.
