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Painting Tips for a New Construction Home

Iowa City General Contractor and custom home builder

For this months blog, we teamed up with our friends at Primetime Painting to get you the scoop on painting your new construction home. There are a lot of articles out there about picking paint colors and the trends for the year, but more important to us as general contractors is the quality and longevity of your paint job. For this reason we are going to give you a quick run down of the difference between a standard paint job and a custom paint job on your home from Stebral Construction.

Before we get started it is important to understand that there are different sheens and qualities of paint and below is a very basic rundown or how these effect your paint job:

“There are basically 4 different amounts of sheen: flat, satin/eggshell, semigloss, and gloss. Sheen means the level of gloss in your paint. Flat has the lowest level, with a smooth matte finish. However, it’s also the hardest to clean. It’s best for low traffic areas. Satin bring warmth and depth to a space and it’s easier to clean than flat. Satin works for most rooms. Semigloss gives a noticeable shine. It’s easy to clean and great for kids rooms, kitchens, and baths. But semigloss will point up imperfections. Gloss is last. It’s shiny, tough, and durable; it’s best for baseboards, doors, and trim – areas with a lot of wear and tear. You can also use it somewhere you want to draw attention.” 

Generally speaking, in a typical new build, contractors will come in with a flat paint and spray the entire house with one color; ceilings, walls and then the trim comes pre-finished. If you want it custom, they may come in with other colors on the walls, but most the time it is one kind of contractor grade flat paint. This type of paint job doesn’t tend to last the test of time. We come into many remodels that were painted this way and the paint job is spotty, marked up and in some cases pulling off the walls. For example, it is never suggest to paint a bathroom in flat paint because flat paint doesn’t offer protection from mold getting into the drywall. Even in main living areas flat is hard to maintain, so if you are in love with flat paint, you should always go with a higher grade paint that will hold up better to the abuse that children, pets and just living does to our walls.

At Stebral Construction, we bring you a quality paint job unlike many other standard contractors. Our painters do custom work to the house and provide the professional finished quality that you would expect in a custom home. You have the freedom to select the paint and sheen that you like, but our painters can work with you to come up with a plan that fits into your lifestyle, whether that be kids, style or just experience. We suggest flat ceilings and an eggshell/satin (or higher gloss level) finish on the walls to protect allow durability. We also do many projects with painted trim that is prepped and finished after installation to provide a flawless look. In addition to what we offer in painting, we also provide staining and custom wood finishing.

There are many steps to the building process, but very few are seen as much as your paint job so it is essential that it looks professional. We are a custom home builder and that is why we provide custom painting as a part of our process. We are always here to answer any questions you have and give advice on how to best suit your needs. See our portfolio to see some of custom painting and staining projects. Painting is just one of the many things that sets us apart from other General Contractors in the Iowa City area so please call us today to get started on building your dream home the right way!

 

Custom Paint jobs from Stebral Construction and Primetime Painting
Iowa City Builder
Custom Built-ins