What Drives the Cost of Exterior Painting in the Northwest Metro?

The short answer: Siding type and condition, how much rotten wood has to be replaced, how many stories and how hard the walls are to reach, and whether the color is changing. Those four move an exterior painting estimate more than anything else. Two estimates for the same house usually differ in the repair line, because one painter probed the trim and one did not.

This post has no dollar figures in it on purpose. Prices change, houses differ, and a number without a walkthrough is a guess. What we can do is show you what we look at when we write an estimate, so you can read one, compare two, and know which questions to ask.

Siding type sets the baseline

The first thing that decides the job is what the house is wrapped in, because it decides how much paint the wall takes and how it has to be applied.

Cedar lap siding, common on the acreage lots around Medina, Greenfield and Corcoran, is either stained or painted, and the two are different jobs. Rough-sawn cedar drinks product; smooth cedar takes less. Cedar that has been stained and is now going to paint needs primer over the whole house first.

Hardboard and composite lap siding is the workhorse of the 1980s through 2000s stock across Maple Grove, Plymouth and Rogers. It takes paint well when the edges are sealed and it fails from the bottom edge of each board when they are not, so the condition check matters more than the type.

Stucco, on a lot of the older Plymouth and lake-home stock, takes more product than lap siding because of the texture, and hairline cracks need attention before paint.

Vinyl can be painted, with a product made for it and a color no darker than the original, or the panels heat and warp. It is the least common thing we paint and the one with the most rules.

Fiber cement paints well and sheds water fast. It is usually the least prep of any of them.

Condition is the multiplier

Two houses with the same siding can be very different jobs. What we look at:

• Chalk. Run a hand across the siding. If it comes away white, the house has to be washed thoroughly before anything will stick, and that is a day.
• Peeling. The percentage of the house that needs scraping and sanding down to a feathered edge is the biggest labor variable in prep. A house that is ten percent peeled and a house that is half peeled are not the same job.
• Bare wood. Anything scraped to bare wood gets primed before finish coats. More bare wood, more primer, more time.
• Previous coatings. A house with several old coats built up on the trim may need more scraping than a house painted once. Older homes in the pre-1978 stock, which includes a good share of downtown Delano and Buffalo, may have lead paint under the top coats, and that changes how the prep is done and contained.
• Mildew and shade. A north wall under trees carries mildew that has to be treated, not painted over.

The repair line is where estimates differ

This is the section we would ask you to read twice.

On every walkthrough our crew carries an awl and pushes it into the wood where water sits: the bottom of window sills, the bottom foot of corner boards, the fascia behind the gutters, the trim beside the garage door, the deck ledger. Sound wood stops the point. Rot lets it sink in. Every soft board gets written on the estimate as its own line, with what it is and what replacing it involves.

Cedar Tone holds a Minnesota residential building contractor license, which is what allows us to do that carpentry. A painting company without one has two options when they find rot: stop and tell you to hire a carpenter, or paint over it. The second one keeps the estimate low. It also means the paint on that board fails in a season and the rot keeps going underneath.

So when two estimates for the same house are far apart, look at the repair section first. If one lists three sills, a corner board and six feet of fascia and the other lists nothing, they did not walk the same house. Our rot and trim repair page shows what those replacements look like.

Stories and access

Height is the plainest cost factor. A two-story takes more ladder and staging time than a rambler, and the pace at the top of a ladder is slower than the pace at the bottom.

Access is the less obvious part. Things that add setup time before any paint goes on:

• A walkout on the back, which turns a two-story into a three-story on that side.
• A steep grade or a retaining wall where a ladder cannot sit flat.
• Decks, porches and planting beds against the house that have to be worked over or around.
• Rooflines that need a ladder on the roof itself, or a lift.
• Window wells and egress windows on a lower level.
• Lake homes where the water side has a narrow strip of ground and the wind is a factor for spraying.

None of these are reasons not to paint a house. They are hours, and they belong in the estimate rather than as a surprise.

Color change

Repainting a house the same color, or close to it, is the least expensive version of the job. Two coats cover, no primer step, and a missed spot is not obvious.

Changing color adds work in both directions. Light over dark usually needs a primer coat or a third finish coat to hide the old color. Dark over light often needs a tinted primer so the finish coats do not look thin at the edges. Deep colors also use premium paint that holds pigment, because a dark wall that fades unevenly on the south side is not something anyone wants to look at in year four.

Sheen and product

Flat and low-sheen finishes hide surface flaws and are what most of the housing stock here wears on the siding. Satin shows more and cleans better, and it is common on trim and doors. Higher sheen shows every ripple in old hardboard, so we steer away from it on siding.

Product grade matters more outside than in. Premium exterior paint costs more per gallon and lasts longer per coat, which is the cheaper path over the life of the house. On siding we spray and back-brush, which uses somewhat more product than spraying alone but puts it into the grain and the laps where the bond forms.

Trim count

Trim is brushed, not sprayed, and it is where the hours go on a house with a lot of it. What we count:

• Windows, and whether they have grids or divided lites on the exterior.
• Shutters, which come off, get painted flat and go back up.
• Corner boards, frieze boards, water tables and any decorative band.
• Fascia and soffit, and whether the soffit is wood or aluminum.
• Doors, garage doors and their casings.
• Porch posts, railings and columns.

A two-tone or three-tone scheme, with a body color, a trim color and an accent on doors and shutters, adds masking and cut-in time over a single trim color.

Garage, outbuildings and the extras

The estimate should say exactly what is in it. A detached garage, a shed, a fence, a deck railing or a pergola each add square footage and their own prep. The garage door itself, if it is steel and chalking, is a wash-scuff-prime-paint sequence on its own. Storm doors, mailbox posts and light fixtures are small but they are line items if you want them done.

How to compare two estimates

Put them side by side and check that they describe the same job:

• Same number of finish coats, and whether bare wood is primed first.
• Siding sprayed and back-brushed, or sprayed only.
• Trim brushed.
• Old caulk cut out and replaced, not painted over.
• Repairs listed board by board, with who does them.
• What is included: garage, shed, fence, deck, doors.
• Cleanup and a final walkthrough with you.

If one estimate answers all of that and the other is a number on a card, the difference in price is usually the difference in scope. The exterior painting page describes our standard job in full.

If you would like an estimate written that way for a house anywhere in the northwest metro, reach us through the contact page and we’ll set up a walkthrough.