Exterior paint costs in Baton Rouge

Baton Rouge's Historic Preservation Commission doesn't regulate paint color. Its design guidelines for the Drehr Place district still have advice worth borrowing anywhere in town. They suggest finding a house's original colors by carefully scraping back the paint layers with a pen knife. They say brick and stone that were never painted should stay unpainted, and that all wood siding in the district should be painted. In a locally designated district, any exterior change you can see from the street needs a certificate of appropriateness unless it counts as ordinary maintenance and repair. Call the planning office before a big change.

For everyone else, the climate does the deciding. Baton Rouge soaks up about 62 inches annually, and its summers keep the thermometer at 90°F or higher for roughly three months. Between the heavy rain and the long summers, the shady, wet parts of a house, like porch ceilings, eaves and the bottoms of columns, tend to lose their paint first.

Baton Rouge's houses split between old and new: roughly a third predate 1980, while two in five are from 2000 or later. On the older houses, layers of old paint and soft wood around windows and doors take the most time. On the newer ones, the trim and the joints between boards take the most water, so they need the most attention.