The first step towards spray painting a house is prepping the siding for a new layer of paint. Whether your home is covered in wood siding, stucco, or even brick, old peeling and faded paint is more than just ugly. Painting textured exterior walls is especially important so that imperfections and wear or tear is hidden. Left alone, it’ll get worse and could lead to rotting and cracking.

Start by power washing the entire house to blast away dirt, grime and loose paint. This will give the new layer of paint a nice, clean surface to adhere to. Allow the siding to dry for one or two days in good weather before applying the first coat of paint.

You should also scrape off any remaining loose paint that the power washer couldn’t get. This can be done using a combination of hand scrapers and Wagner’s PaintEATER disc sander tool. The PaintEATER does a great job of removing loose paint and smoothing the surface.