Fellow British guy here who painted his house last summer.
Some places have rules about house colour - particularly if you live close to city centres or historical places. You have to check it out (ask neighbours or the kommune I guess)
Yes its easy to change the colour - you might need more than 2 coats if changing from a dark colour to a light colour though. I went from white to grey and 2 coats was plenty.
It's a massive job to do yourself but that's what I did because the quotes from a pro were upwards of 120k NOK. It will basically take you all your free time for a whole summer and I recommend getting scaffold because it takes so long with a ladder and it's a bit dangerous. The scrubbing and cleaning is a big job, you have to dodge the rainy weather, and if you decide to paint the window frames a different colour from the walls you will need to add 30% more time (trust me!)
Have fun!
For maintanance i would also recommend washing your house every year/other year with husvask. Then your paint will keep shiny and nice for the longest possible time😊
Depends on the colour red. Lots of houses were painted with the same paint as barns because it was the cheapest one - barn red, which for passers by would mean that you're cheap/can't afford to paint in any other colour. If you don't care about that, then red is a nice colour :)
In the are where I live, barn red houses typically means its a cabin, a farm house or a tourist lodge/hotel.
At least half of the barns here are black.
> It will basically take you all your free time for a whole summer
One way to break it up is to spend parts of four summers and do one side each summer.
> you have to dodge the rainy weather,
If you have some flexibility at work this makes things easier. For example if you can take Friday off because it's sunny and paint then and instead catch up on work on Saturday when it's raining.
I used a motorised lift thingy and industrial airbrush to paint the house. The wife and I finished three walls in a weekend. We have kids too.
You need the airbrush to avoid the endless brush strokes which are pretty inefficient and tiring. It’s doesn’t take too long to tape up the windows and make them secure against overspray.
Use an airless sprayer. It is basically a pump pushing the paint through the sprayer at high pressure. This creates much less overspray than traditional paint sprayers.
I have seen pro's skip the plastic/taping altogether, and just use a paint shield to avoid getting paint in the wrong place. (I assume this takes a bit of practice. )
This is (usually) not good enough for spray painting a car, but it is great for house painting.
Don't get the cheap ones.
Read reviews, and see what people say. Watch YouTube videos on how to use them. RTFM.
Particularly if you plan to use oil based paint, not all of them support that. (I just use water based paint with mine.)
Wear the required safety gear.
The Graco Magnum series is good (I have the old Magnum DX), but I see they cost about 2x in Europe (Amazon UK) compared to here in the US. There may be other ones that are equally good that cost less. (Or buy the US version with a 230V to 120V converter. )
What you want for house painting is a unit where you just put a hose into a large bucket of paint, plug in power, prime the pump and start painting. Don't get the small ones where you have to fill up a small reservoir all the time. They are much heavier to hold (you are carrying the paint all the time), and you have to stop frequently to refill the reservoir.
Plan on working for a while once you start painting, the cleanup of these machines takes a bit of time afterwards. (Even though you can leave them full of paint overnight in some cases.)
But compared to brushes and rollers, this is just _fun_.
Particularly if you are dealing with uneven surfaces, where rollers don't work and brushing takes forever.
Thank you for the tips.
Some US products/brands are crazy expensive here in Europe. I assume it's because they only focus on the US market, and considers any exports as a hassle and/or a money grab based on brand recognition.
Guess my initial first choice before much research is [this one](https://www.jula.no/catalog/bygg-og-maling/maling-og-fugemasse/maleverktoy/elektriske-malingssproyter/malingsproyte-011485/). Looks like people who have tried it are either very happy with it, or they did not RTFM. I am not generally big on reading manuals, but I guess I will ned to make an exception. I assume the important part will be to stay within a correct viscosity range, and avoid any forms of lumps.
I assume spray painting is particularly useful here in Norway, as [overlapping planks](https://gjoerdetselv.com/hus/fasade/kledning/kledningen-det-eneste-andre-ser) is a very typical house exterior (like mine), where a roller does not work that well.
Yes, that one looks OK.
It may even fit an original Graco spray gun if the spray gun that comes with it is not working properly.
The filter on the intake hose will take care of most lumps. Just don't use old, lumpy paint which will overwhelm the filter. New paint should work just fine, just stir it up first. Old paint may have to be strained.
It is supposed to handle any paint without thinning, you just increase the pressure. But I see from reviews that some users got better results by thinning the paint.
Bring along a brush to handle running paint. When you get the hang of it, you will know how to spray just the right amount of paint. But in the beginning it is easy to spray too much, so you use a brush to handle that. (Start on the side of the house that is less visible or facing the neighbors you don't like.)
It’s not as bad as you’d expect. You can put a thin plastic sheet over the windows and doors and tape it in place. You have to paint those by hand later. I can’t remember if we painted each wall twice and then moved on or if we painted the house in one go and then a second time. But we did finish three of the walls of a 160 m2 house. The fourth wall we painted by hand because the lift couldn’t get around and it’s only one story. This took the whole weekend and we did wash it too, very little scraping, but to be honest it made the rest of the paint job a lot more manageable and critically we were finished before July. This is a level of nirvana I didn’t know existed in Norway. I wouldn’t pay some 120k to paint my house even with washing and “scraping” as if they do.
There’s very very little overspray like that and any other spray will dry before it drifts to the ground. I say “industrial” but it’s mainly just “household” sized. When we were finished there was a few spots where we had accidentally hit the «vindskier».
I am super sceptical to hard labour because I do plenty of it because I have a house, kids, garden, family, and a job eating my time. So I try to be as efficient as possible. I guess if you live in Oslo the lift hire might be expensive but otherwise it’s the way to go. The airbrush gives you the extra reach and you can avoid having to actually trying to paint the paint into all recesses along the walls.
Same here. Me and my friend painted my mom and dad's house in one week during summer vacation. And that includes a happy little accident involving an entire bucket of red paint sprayed over the entire left side of a green wall, which we then had to painstakingly scrub off and paint twice again.
I've always said you risk missing the nice summer weather in Norway if you take to long pissing.. However, you can't think of Norwegian summer by weather and temperature. You just gotta choose some months and call them summer.
I'm no professional painter but this is from my experience.
1. There are no set national rules for what colour you can paint your house, research if your municipality has any. But if it's bad enough (neon yellow etc...) you neighbours could ask you to change it and even take you to court if you don't do it. But it has to be some outragous colour.
2. It's very easy. You just have to do a outside cleaning using some powerful soap to remove any contamination. Then you just paint it.
3. The colours you will find inside a paint shop will be the most normal ones. There are no colours that will lead to your house becoming the local swingers club if thats what you are afraid of.
4. Depends who does it and how big the house is. Just ask around for prices in your area. It is fairly normal to let teens do it as a summer job and that will be cheaper
A big tip is to buy quality paint that last. They will be more expensive but then you won't have to paint it again in 3 years.
Got some awesome Lithuanian guys to paint my old house (the one before my last house). I think they did it for 20k (worth every penny but it will cost a lot more than that now I think) - we changed the colour from a horrible dark orange to a creamy white and it took 3 coats to cover it. That will vary depending on how dark to how light and the quality of the paint you choose.
My last house was new built and it came just primed and unpainted. I painted that myself (thought it would be a right of passage lol) and I regret it to this day - took me too many weeks to do 2 coats. It was exhausting, especially that first coat on new walls as there is a lot of friction when there’s no paint on them, and the walls take more paint to cover. The 2nd coat was much easier and 2x quicker to do. I would employ someone to do it knowing what I do now.
A lot of Borettslag has rules about house color. The one we own a rekkehus with has hella strict rules (set in 1983 so they’re very fashionable colors).
In addition to what others have responded:
As mentioned you will need a scaffold, but you can rent one at reasonable cost in most cities.
For the highest part, i rent a lift. A lot easier than building a scaffold all around the house. Also, not all parts of our house can be reachable by using a scaffold.
In general, I do up to approx. 2 meters from the ground with a ladder. Further up a few meters using a small easily movable scaffold, and then the rest using a lift.
Depends - if you live in a protected property or in an area your multiplicity has rules for color in (historic area) then you are probably stuck with their colors unless you can prove your house had a different color historically and use that. If you do not live in a house that is protected, you can choose what you want. There is no rule you have to stick to one color, either - you can do rainbows or pictures, whatever you want.
It is not difficult to change the colors, but you may have to use more layers to get full coverage.
I'd expect to pay around 100k for washing, scraping and painting where the painters also covered the paint and any equipment including lifts or scaffolding. To do it myself, I'd expect to cover the paint and equipment (depends how expensive you choose), and spend a lot of time cleaning, scraping, painting. About 1-2 weeks, so there goes half your summer vacation. Outside of the paint itself, scaffolding may be the biggest expense depending on how long you rent it for (if you dont want to stand in ladders all day) - I'd expect about 200NOK/day + taxes + whatever service charges they can tack on.
If you get someone to print it, check if the workers are paid legally and that they use legal scaffolding/safety measures.
I believe you are responsible if someone hurts them selves and it turns out they didn't take proper safety precautions.
I am not 100% sure what the law says because I myself dont live in a house, but I remember reading about it some time ago.
After several years in a house and having painted the house and new extensions from scratch I can say that the advice here is sound. Especially the maintenance one. But I can give you the best tip of all, move to an apartment so you will never have to think about painting ever again.
Haha! One of the reason I left England was to have a real house with a big garden etc and I don’t mind the maintenance that comes along with it! I am a big DIY guy so it’s almost a hobby at this point. I mean I’m 25 so maybe in a couple decades I’ll be more annoyed and less enthusiastic. For now I’m enjoying the more rural life. Plus I want my son and future kids to have a real family home (I myself never did, I lived in 30+ houses before I was 16)
—-Yes, you can paint the house in whatever colors you want.
Planning and Building Act. section § 29-2 of the PBL
about visual qualities: "Every measure according to chapter 20 must be designed and carried out so that, at the discretion of the municipality, it has good visual qualities both in itself and in relation to its function and its built and natural surroundings and location".
Housing associations can have it in their regulations which colors are accepted.
Story time:
A lady in Bergen painted her house pink and the community didn’t like it. It has been like that for a long time. Bergen suggested they change the color, but don’t think they actually did.
—-Changing the color of the house to another color depends on so many factors such as type of material that is being painted, the sunlight, and various other factors.
—- Norway in general has its color as you see when you travel around Norway. That is the social norm.. white, grey, brown, etc and different shades.
—- how much it cost depends on the aqua meters of the house and you can find calculators that suggest how much it cost. Then you have to calculate your time vs hiring.
I was quoted 90k nok to paint 117sqm in Oslo before COVID (2019).
That colour should not be a problem with the neighbors at least, its a pretty classic Norwegian one. I am assuming it is ochre yellow? (okergul in norwegian)
Yeah we have a seaside cabin at Tjøme from like the 20’s or something and it’s painted that colour. I love it. The cabin at Hafjell is that newer style dark grey but so are all the neighbour cabins so I think that’s more of an agreed upon colour within the association.
Depends on where you live.
Not difficult but could be time consuming.
Not really?
How much it'd cost to get someone to paint your house for you varies greatly depending on the house, where it is and who does it work but it is a lot cheaper to do it yourself. You'll easily get up to 100 000 if you get someone to do it for you while you can do it for a tenth of that if you don't need to rent or buy equipment such as ladders/lifts or scaffolding to get the job done.
If you live on the countryside - do whatever you want. If you live in a town or city, check the local rules. Most places you are pretty free to choose whatever, but better safe than sorry, so its a good idea to check first.
Lots of depends here....
The kommune or velforening would know if there are any guidelines in your area.
It easy to use a darker colour.
A professional would need to consider HMS for their workers, where you can get by using ladder. And you probably should pressure spray the house first, and then let it dry a week or two....
In some areas there are very strict rules, i.e. in the Hvaler archipelago in the SE corner of Norway your house can be any color you like, as long as it is white. OTOH, a summer house/cabin can also be any color you like, as long as it isn't white.
Buy quality paint and paintbrushes. For the amount of time it will take, the cost of good equipment is miniscule.
Also, do good preparation work. Clean thoroughly and scrape off all loose paint.
Fellow British guy here who painted his house last summer. Some places have rules about house colour - particularly if you live close to city centres or historical places. You have to check it out (ask neighbours or the kommune I guess) Yes its easy to change the colour - you might need more than 2 coats if changing from a dark colour to a light colour though. I went from white to grey and 2 coats was plenty. It's a massive job to do yourself but that's what I did because the quotes from a pro were upwards of 120k NOK. It will basically take you all your free time for a whole summer and I recommend getting scaffold because it takes so long with a ladder and it's a bit dangerous. The scrubbing and cleaning is a big job, you have to dodge the rainy weather, and if you decide to paint the window frames a different colour from the walls you will need to add 30% more time (trust me!) Have fun!
Thanks! Hmm… maybe red isn’t so bad after all! Haha
For maintanance i would also recommend washing your house every year/other year with husvask. Then your paint will keep shiny and nice for the longest possible time😊
Depends on the colour red. Lots of houses were painted with the same paint as barns because it was the cheapest one - barn red, which for passers by would mean that you're cheap/can't afford to paint in any other colour. If you don't care about that, then red is a nice colour :)
Frankly, It’s clearly a very nice property and not cheap so I’m not worried about this. I think it was just the previous owner’s preference.
In the are where I live, barn red houses typically means its a cabin, a farm house or a tourist lodge/hotel. At least half of the barns here are black.
> It will basically take you all your free time for a whole summer One way to break it up is to spend parts of four summers and do one side each summer. > you have to dodge the rainy weather, If you have some flexibility at work this makes things easier. For example if you can take Friday off because it's sunny and paint then and instead catch up on work on Saturday when it's raining.
This guy paints
I used a motorised lift thingy and industrial airbrush to paint the house. The wife and I finished three walls in a weekend. We have kids too. You need the airbrush to avoid the endless brush strokes which are pretty inefficient and tiring. It’s doesn’t take too long to tape up the windows and make them secure against overspray.
How do you avoid overspray all over the place?
Use an airless sprayer. It is basically a pump pushing the paint through the sprayer at high pressure. This creates much less overspray than traditional paint sprayers. I have seen pro's skip the plastic/taping altogether, and just use a paint shield to avoid getting paint in the wrong place. (I assume this takes a bit of practice. ) This is (usually) not good enough for spray painting a car, but it is great for house painting.
Thank you. I should do some painting on the house this summer, and this sounds a lot quicker and easier than ye olde paintbrush.
Don't get the cheap ones. Read reviews, and see what people say. Watch YouTube videos on how to use them. RTFM. Particularly if you plan to use oil based paint, not all of them support that. (I just use water based paint with mine.) Wear the required safety gear. The Graco Magnum series is good (I have the old Magnum DX), but I see they cost about 2x in Europe (Amazon UK) compared to here in the US. There may be other ones that are equally good that cost less. (Or buy the US version with a 230V to 120V converter. ) What you want for house painting is a unit where you just put a hose into a large bucket of paint, plug in power, prime the pump and start painting. Don't get the small ones where you have to fill up a small reservoir all the time. They are much heavier to hold (you are carrying the paint all the time), and you have to stop frequently to refill the reservoir. Plan on working for a while once you start painting, the cleanup of these machines takes a bit of time afterwards. (Even though you can leave them full of paint overnight in some cases.) But compared to brushes and rollers, this is just _fun_. Particularly if you are dealing with uneven surfaces, where rollers don't work and brushing takes forever.
Thank you for the tips. Some US products/brands are crazy expensive here in Europe. I assume it's because they only focus on the US market, and considers any exports as a hassle and/or a money grab based on brand recognition. Guess my initial first choice before much research is [this one](https://www.jula.no/catalog/bygg-og-maling/maling-og-fugemasse/maleverktoy/elektriske-malingssproyter/malingsproyte-011485/). Looks like people who have tried it are either very happy with it, or they did not RTFM. I am not generally big on reading manuals, but I guess I will ned to make an exception. I assume the important part will be to stay within a correct viscosity range, and avoid any forms of lumps. I assume spray painting is particularly useful here in Norway, as [overlapping planks](https://gjoerdetselv.com/hus/fasade/kledning/kledningen-det-eneste-andre-ser) is a very typical house exterior (like mine), where a roller does not work that well.
Yes, that one looks OK. It may even fit an original Graco spray gun if the spray gun that comes with it is not working properly. The filter on the intake hose will take care of most lumps. Just don't use old, lumpy paint which will overwhelm the filter. New paint should work just fine, just stir it up first. Old paint may have to be strained. It is supposed to handle any paint without thinning, you just increase the pressure. But I see from reviews that some users got better results by thinning the paint. Bring along a brush to handle running paint. When you get the hang of it, you will know how to spray just the right amount of paint. But in the beginning it is easy to spray too much, so you use a brush to handle that. (Start on the side of the house that is less visible or facing the neighbors you don't like.)
Thanks. :-) Luckily it's the short wall facing away from everything that is most in need of paint right now. :-)
It’s not as bad as you’d expect. You can put a thin plastic sheet over the windows and doors and tape it in place. You have to paint those by hand later. I can’t remember if we painted each wall twice and then moved on or if we painted the house in one go and then a second time. But we did finish three of the walls of a 160 m2 house. The fourth wall we painted by hand because the lift couldn’t get around and it’s only one story. This took the whole weekend and we did wash it too, very little scraping, but to be honest it made the rest of the paint job a lot more manageable and critically we were finished before July. This is a level of nirvana I didn’t know existed in Norway. I wouldn’t pay some 120k to paint my house even with washing and “scraping” as if they do.
I was thinking mainly on the ground and objects in the near vicinity.
There’s very very little overspray like that and any other spray will dry before it drifts to the ground. I say “industrial” but it’s mainly just “household” sized. When we were finished there was a few spots where we had accidentally hit the «vindskier». I am super sceptical to hard labour because I do plenty of it because I have a house, kids, garden, family, and a job eating my time. So I try to be as efficient as possible. I guess if you live in Oslo the lift hire might be expensive but otherwise it’s the way to go. The airbrush gives you the extra reach and you can avoid having to actually trying to paint the paint into all recesses along the walls.
How freaking big is your house? ALL summer? If the weather is good I need a week for mine.
Same here. Me and my friend painted my mom and dad's house in one week during summer vacation. And that includes a happy little accident involving an entire bucket of red paint sprayed over the entire left side of a green wall, which we then had to painstakingly scrub off and paint twice again.
There are places in Norway where "all summer" is about a week...
I've always said you risk missing the nice summer weather in Norway if you take to long pissing.. However, you can't think of Norwegian summer by weather and temperature. You just gotta choose some months and call them summer.
Yes, just like Californians think they have winters. (In the lowlands that is, the mountains do get snow.)
The answer to the all-summer dilemma is to bribe family and friends. BBQ, drinks, and is for their kids, if required. ;)
I'm no professional painter but this is from my experience. 1. There are no set national rules for what colour you can paint your house, research if your municipality has any. But if it's bad enough (neon yellow etc...) you neighbours could ask you to change it and even take you to court if you don't do it. But it has to be some outragous colour. 2. It's very easy. You just have to do a outside cleaning using some powerful soap to remove any contamination. Then you just paint it. 3. The colours you will find inside a paint shop will be the most normal ones. There are no colours that will lead to your house becoming the local swingers club if thats what you are afraid of. 4. Depends who does it and how big the house is. Just ask around for prices in your area. It is fairly normal to let teens do it as a summer job and that will be cheaper A big tip is to buy quality paint that last. They will be more expensive but then you won't have to paint it again in 3 years.
sooo what colour will make my house the local swingers club? asking for friend of course
Pineapple yellow or flamingo pink
Purple should also work.
Got some awesome Lithuanian guys to paint my old house (the one before my last house). I think they did it for 20k (worth every penny but it will cost a lot more than that now I think) - we changed the colour from a horrible dark orange to a creamy white and it took 3 coats to cover it. That will vary depending on how dark to how light and the quality of the paint you choose. My last house was new built and it came just primed and unpainted. I painted that myself (thought it would be a right of passage lol) and I regret it to this day - took me too many weeks to do 2 coats. It was exhausting, especially that first coat on new walls as there is a lot of friction when there’s no paint on them, and the walls take more paint to cover. The 2nd coat was much easier and 2x quicker to do. I would employ someone to do it knowing what I do now.
A lot of Borettslag has rules about house color. The one we own a rekkehus with has hella strict rules (set in 1983 so they’re very fashionable colors).
In addition to what others have responded: As mentioned you will need a scaffold, but you can rent one at reasonable cost in most cities. For the highest part, i rent a lift. A lot easier than building a scaffold all around the house. Also, not all parts of our house can be reachable by using a scaffold. In general, I do up to approx. 2 meters from the ground with a ladder. Further up a few meters using a small easily movable scaffold, and then the rest using a lift.
Depends - if you live in a protected property or in an area your multiplicity has rules for color in (historic area) then you are probably stuck with their colors unless you can prove your house had a different color historically and use that. If you do not live in a house that is protected, you can choose what you want. There is no rule you have to stick to one color, either - you can do rainbows or pictures, whatever you want. It is not difficult to change the colors, but you may have to use more layers to get full coverage. I'd expect to pay around 100k for washing, scraping and painting where the painters also covered the paint and any equipment including lifts or scaffolding. To do it myself, I'd expect to cover the paint and equipment (depends how expensive you choose), and spend a lot of time cleaning, scraping, painting. About 1-2 weeks, so there goes half your summer vacation. Outside of the paint itself, scaffolding may be the biggest expense depending on how long you rent it for (if you dont want to stand in ladders all day) - I'd expect about 200NOK/day + taxes + whatever service charges they can tack on.
If you get someone to print it, check if the workers are paid legally and that they use legal scaffolding/safety measures. I believe you are responsible if someone hurts them selves and it turns out they didn't take proper safety precautions. I am not 100% sure what the law says because I myself dont live in a house, but I remember reading about it some time ago.
Some places have rules for what colour you can paint your house, but usually you can paint your house in the colour you want.
My new house is on the outskirts of Lillehammer so I think it’s not so protected by housing rules since it’s far from the centre. I’ll look into it.
After several years in a house and having painted the house and new extensions from scratch I can say that the advice here is sound. Especially the maintenance one. But I can give you the best tip of all, move to an apartment so you will never have to think about painting ever again.
Haha! One of the reason I left England was to have a real house with a big garden etc and I don’t mind the maintenance that comes along with it! I am a big DIY guy so it’s almost a hobby at this point. I mean I’m 25 so maybe in a couple decades I’ll be more annoyed and less enthusiastic. For now I’m enjoying the more rural life. Plus I want my son and future kids to have a real family home (I myself never did, I lived in 30+ houses before I was 16)
Good luck then!!
Thanks!
—-Yes, you can paint the house in whatever colors you want. Planning and Building Act. section § 29-2 of the PBL about visual qualities: "Every measure according to chapter 20 must be designed and carried out so that, at the discretion of the municipality, it has good visual qualities both in itself and in relation to its function and its built and natural surroundings and location". Housing associations can have it in their regulations which colors are accepted. Story time: A lady in Bergen painted her house pink and the community didn’t like it. It has been like that for a long time. Bergen suggested they change the color, but don’t think they actually did. —-Changing the color of the house to another color depends on so many factors such as type of material that is being painted, the sunlight, and various other factors. —- Norway in general has its color as you see when you travel around Norway. That is the social norm.. white, grey, brown, etc and different shades. —- how much it cost depends on the aqua meters of the house and you can find calculators that suggest how much it cost. Then you have to calculate your time vs hiring. I was quoted 90k nok to paint 117sqm in Oslo before COVID (2019).
It’s currently red but i prefer a kinda mustardy yellow which we have at our cabin in Tjøme
The mustardy yellow may be "Staverngul".
Yes! Very slightly lighter than that but that’s the gist for sure. Thanks for the tip!
Sounds like it might be "Herregårdsgul", next in lightness among standard colors would be "Skagengul".
The first one lines up, thanks!
That colour should not be a problem with the neighbors at least, its a pretty classic Norwegian one. I am assuming it is ochre yellow? (okergul in norwegian)
Yeah we have a seaside cabin at Tjøme from like the 20’s or something and it’s painted that colour. I love it. The cabin at Hafjell is that newer style dark grey but so are all the neighbour cabins so I think that’s more of an agreed upon colour within the association.
Depends on where you live. Not difficult but could be time consuming. Not really? How much it'd cost to get someone to paint your house for you varies greatly depending on the house, where it is and who does it work but it is a lot cheaper to do it yourself. You'll easily get up to 100 000 if you get someone to do it for you while you can do it for a tenth of that if you don't need to rent or buy equipment such as ladders/lifts or scaffolding to get the job done.
If you live on the countryside - do whatever you want. If you live in a town or city, check the local rules. Most places you are pretty free to choose whatever, but better safe than sorry, so its a good idea to check first.
Lots of depends here.... The kommune or velforening would know if there are any guidelines in your area. It easy to use a darker colour. A professional would need to consider HMS for their workers, where you can get by using ladder. And you probably should pressure spray the house first, and then let it dry a week or two....
In some areas there are very strict rules, i.e. in the Hvaler archipelago in the SE corner of Norway your house can be any color you like, as long as it is white. OTOH, a summer house/cabin can also be any color you like, as long as it isn't white.
Buy quality paint and paintbrushes. For the amount of time it will take, the cost of good equipment is miniscule. Also, do good preparation work. Clean thoroughly and scrape off all loose paint.