Exterior Trim

Exterior Trim

Most homes exterior trim is painted on the front only, more commonly called front-facing the trim. Sides of trim is normally painted with main body color. Few homes have trim painted on all 3 visible surfaces, called in the painting industry as 3-D'ed painting.

Painting exterior trim can be thought of costing less than completely painting all exterior surfaces, but a few things to consider from a painting contractor points of view. Most of us look to save where we can, especially in this day and economic conditions. House painting is no different, when it comes to saving money. A home exterior weathers from harsh elements of heat, cold, sun, and snow, and exterior paint ages over time needing repainting. Exterior trim, being that of solid wood is normally the first to show signs of painting maintenance. Many times a homeowner happens to call, asking for only painting the trim. Trim paint jobs sound good at first, but have some underlying thoughts may have not been considered. Below are things to consider when considering painting trim only.

Tips For Painting Exterior Trim on Your Home
By Aaron Walker - Ezinearticles

Of all the painting jobs you might have to do at home painting the exterior trim of your home can be one of the tougher jobs. Because you're generally painting small and fiddly surfaces it's going to take more preparation and a lot more time overall. Painting the trim of your house properly can really be the finishing touch to an exterior painting project well done. Of course if you mess up it can make your home look pretty crappy so prep, prep, prep!

You'll need to mask off the area around the trim if you're painting the trim first - just to stop splashes of paint. The same is true if you're painting your walls first - you'll need to mask off the trim areas to make sure they don't get splatters of paint that you'll have remove or sand away later. Save yourself work now by preparing properly.

Windows are going to be one of your biggest headaches because they're usually so difficult to mask. Even though it's time consuming to mask panes of glass off properly you're still going to be better off doing this than spending hours later on carefully scraping off specks of paint. Plus you run the risk of actually scratching the glass itself. Not something you want. When you're painting the exterior of your house then you really need to take weather conditions into account. If it's rained in the last few days then you'll need to wait 2 - 3 days for the walls to have dried out properly. It doesn't even need to be wet for problems to happen - dampness is enough to cause chaos when you're painting outside.

You'll also need to pay attention to the temperature outside before you start painting. If it's too hot then the paint can bubble and blister. If it's too cold the paint can actually wrinkle. In general cold weather means that it's going to take longer for your paint to dry too. Take all this into account before you start and check the weather forecast for the next 72 hours just to be sure.

So even though you want to get started painting straight away painting the outside of your home is pretty different to the way you paint inside. It's worth taking the time to prepare properly though - the final result will be worth it.

Exterior Trim