After 25 years of painting homes on the North Shore, I can tell you that picking the wrong product for an exterior surface is one of the most expensive mistakes a homeowner can make. Not because the product itself costs more, but because you end up doing the job twice. Here is what I’ve learned about matching the right product to the right surface.

Fences

The first question is simple: what’s the fence made of?

Pine fences need paint. Pine isn’t porous enough to absorb stain properly. If you try to stain pine, it’ll look blotchy and wear off fast. Paint gives you a solid, protective film that holds up.
Cedar or redwood fences give you stain options. You’ve got two choices here: solid stain or semi-transparent stain. Solid stain soaks into the wood, giving it a finished look similar to paint. Semi-transparent lets the wood grain show through, which is why most people go with cedar or redwood in the first place. If you wanted to hide the grain, you’d have bought pine and painted it.

Porches & Decks

This is where I see homeowners and other contractors make a costly mistake. The paint and stain products I’ve talked about in previous posts are designed for vertical surfaces on the house, siding, trim, and other areas that don’t get walked on. You cannot use those products on porch floors, deck floors, or stairs. They aren’t built to handle foot traffic, furniture being dragged across them, snow boots, kids running around, any of it.

If someone uses a standard exterior house paint on your deck floor, here’s what happens: within a season, maybe two, it starts peeling and flaking. The surface just can’t take the wear. Then you’re paying to strip it all off and start over, which costs more than doing it right the first time.

Porch and deck floors need products specifically formulated for horizontal, walkable surfaces. These are built to flex with the wood as it expands and contracts through Chicago’s freeze-thaw cycles while standing up to daily foot traffic.

Detail Areas (Trim, Fascia, Soffit, Doors, Shutters, Railings, and Spindles)

Once you’ve addressed the body of the house, it’s time to think about the detail work. By ‘detail areas,’ I mean wood and metal (aluminum) trim, fascia, soffit, doors, shutters, railings, and spindles.

These surfaces take a beating in their own way. Trim and fascia are exposed to direct sun and rain. Doors open and close thousands of times a year. Railings get grabbed by hands covered in sunscreen, bug spray, whatever else. Metal surfaces expand and contract differently from wood.

The product you choose for these areas needs to bond well to the specific material, whether that’s bare wood, previously painted wood, or aluminum, and it needs to hold up to the kind of contact each piece gets. A good contractor will know which primer and topcoat combination works for each surface rather than rolling one product across everything and hoping for the best.

Brick & Concrete

Brick is common on North Shore homes, either as the primary surface or as a foundation. Concrete and masonry foundations use the same product family. There are two products I trust for these surfaces:

Coronado Texcrete is the same product I mentioned in my earlier post about stucco. It works well across brick, concrete, and masonry because it expands and contracts with the surface. More importantly, it allows water vapor to escape from within the material. That’s critical. If moisture gets trapped behind the paint film, you get peeling and blistering, sometimes within the first year.
Benjamin Moore Aura Waterborne exterior paint is the other option. It’s a solid performer on masonry surfaces and holds up well in our climate.

The key with both products is proper prep. Brick and concrete need to be clean, dry, and free of efflorescence (that white powdery residue you sometimes see on masonry). Skip the prep, and even the best product will fail.

Picking The Right Sheen

Choosing the right sheen for your home’s exterior matters just as much as the color. Different surfaces need different sheens to hold up against Chicago weather.

Here’s the general breakdown:

Siding: Flat or satin. Flat hides imperfections better (helpful on older wood or stucco), but satin holds up longer and cleans easier. Most of the time, I recommend satin for siding because it strikes the right balance.
Trim, doors, and shutters: Semi-gloss or high-gloss. These surfaces take more abuse from hands, weather, and direct sun. A higher sheen means better durability and easier cleaning. The trade-off is the same as interior work: gloss shows every flaw, so prep work and priming matter even more.
Porch and deck floors: Use a product made specifically for floors. Standard wall paint won’t hold up to foot traffic. Floor paints and stains typically come in satin or semi-gloss, which provide durability without being slippery when wet. Choosing the right sheen for each surface isn’t just about how things look. It’s about how long the paint job lasts before you have to call someone again. Get it wrong, and you’ll see peeling, fading, or wear in spots that should have held up for years.

Matching Interior Paint Products to Your Siding

Sheen is only half the equation. You also need the right product for the surface you’re painting. Get this wrong, and you’ll have peeling, chipping, or fading long before you should. Let’s start with the three most common siding types I see on North Shore homes: hardwood, cedar, and stucco. Each one needs a different approach.

Hardwood Siding (Oak or Pine)

Hardwood siding does well with a waterborne acrylic paint in a low-luster or flat sheen. The acrylic formula flexes with the wood as it expands and contracts through the seasons, which means fewer cracks over time. Benjamin Moore’s Regal Select Exterior is a solid choice for hardwood siding.

Cedar Siding, Trim, or Shingles

Cedar is different. You want stain, not paint, cedar.

Here’s why: cedar is porous. Stain (whether semi-transparent or solid) soaks into the wood fibers. Paint sits on top. Paint sits on top. When paint sits on top of cedar, it eventually chips and flakes off as the wood moves underneath.

Stain won’t chip because there’s nothing sitting on the surface to peel away. It fades gradually and evenly over time. You won’t end up with bare wood showing through, like you will with failed paint.

Stucco

Stucco moves. It expands in the heat and contracts in the cold, which creates hairline cracks. Standard paint can’t keep up with that movement. Use an elastomeric coating instead. Elastomeric products stretch and flex, bridging small cracks as they form. This keeps water out and extends the finish’s lifespan.

Picking the right product for each surface isn’t glamorous, but it’s the difference between a paint job that holds up for years and one that starts failing after the first hard winter. If you’re not sure what’s on your house or which product to use, that’s exactly what we walk through during an estimate.