Exterior Painting in Great Falls, VA

When we find a failed board on a house out here, we can usually point at what caused it before we get the ladder down. It is directly under a gutter seam, or under an inside corner where two roof planes dump together, or behind a downspout that has been dripping quietly for three years.

Big lots with mature hardwoods mean gutters pack with litter and overflow, and overflow sheets down the fascia and in behind the trim. So we look at the gutters before we quote, not after.

We do the carpentry ourselves. Soft wood comes out back to solid material and gets replaced in kind. Small isolated damage in an otherwise sound board takes two-part epoxy, which is a real repair, not a cosmetic one, as long as the wood around it is firm. Everything new gets primed on all six faces and both cut ends before it goes up. And if the pitch on a gutter run or a missing kickout is what fed the damage, we will tell you, because paint has never fixed water.

Houses on the sloping ground here present two stories at the street and three at the rear, with a walkout below. The tall gable ends are the part that gets skipped by whoever painted it last, and you can see it from the driveway when the peak reads a different sheen than the wall under it.

Footing is the real problem. Gravel drives, soft ground, beds of ornamentals right against the foundation, and a grade that falls away from the wall. We use levelers and standoffs and we build a platform where a ladder cannot sit square. Nobody on this crew works off the top three rungs to save setting up again.

Long driveways change the day too. On a big envelope we set a materials point close to the house rather than walking a couple hundred feet back to the truck every time a five gallon runs out, and if an order has to come up a quarter mile of gravel we bring it in ourselves.

An acre and a half comes with more than a house. We regularly coat detached garages, workshops, run-in sheds, pool houses and cabanas on the same visit, and on the Springvale and Beach Mill side there are long runs of board fence.

Fence is its own day. Hundreds of linear feet is a spray job, not a brush job, and spraying needs a calm morning and careful masking of the neighbors' plantings and anything parked nearby. We would rather move a fence day than fight a breeze and spend the afternoon apologizing.

Unlike the cluster and townhouse communities east of here, most of 22066 is detached houses on large lots with no architectural committee looking at your body color. That freedom is real, and it catches people out.

Two constraints remain, and both are physical. The roof is one, because it is the largest color on the house and nobody is changing it. Stone is the other, and stone has undertones that fight a lot of warm grays.

Put samples on the actual wall, in two places, and look at them morning, midday and late afternoon. A color reads lighter and more saturated across a big sunlit elevation than it does on a chip, and on a wood body the deep colors will chalk and fade on the south and west long before the north side moves at all.

The square footage is only part of it. It is the detail that sets the schedule: the trim returns, the corner boards, the soffit and fascia runs on deep overhangs, the shutters, the porch ceilings, the garage doors.

We sequence elevation by elevation so the house is never left with bare wood open to a forecast. A house with sound trim and honest sealant moves along quickly. A cedar house with forty years of coating history on it does not, and we would rather say which one yours is at the estimate than discover it on day four.

Fredy Vargas founded Fred General Painting in 2002 and still walks the house himself, with a ladder, before anyone quotes it. On a wood-clad house the price sits in the carpentry, and carpentry cannot be estimated from the ground.

We are at 8040 Trevor Place in Vienna, roughly fifteen minutes away on Georgetown Pike. Virginia contractor license 2705098145, licensed, bonded and insured. Four employees, the same crew on your house every day. Monday to Friday 8 to 5, weekends by appointment. No job minimum. Veterans and anyone 65 or older take 10 percent off. Call 703-869-0593.