Bad things about painting the trim in your house.

[fairfarmhand]

Besides taping and cleaning it.

 

The trim hasn't been painted in our house since we moved in 12 years ago, though we have updated the paint.  So I repainted the trim in the kitchen (the worst room) this morning.

 

2 bad things happened.

 

The wall paint looks worse now. I'm tempted to repaint it.

 

The other rooms, the rooms that I thought were okay....now look HORRIBLE. I thought I might be able to get away with repainting the 2 worst rooms. Don't think that will work now.

[Moxie]

Our new house has cream colored trim (except in the kitchen where it is painted RED and the basement where it is a lovely 80's Country Blue). I suppose it's ok if you like cream but to me it just looks dirty. I'm slooooowly repainting all of the trim shiny white before we tackle the walls. I feel your pain!!

[fairfarmhand]

Our new house has cream colored trim (except in the kitchen where it is painted RED and the basement where it is a lovely 80's Country Blue). I suppose it's ok if you like cream but to me it just looks dirty. I'm slooooowly repainting all of the trim shiny white before we tackle the walls. I feel your pain!!

 

that sounds awful. This is such a tedious thing. Its much more fun to be rolling broad swaths of color onto the drywall. I got the kitchen done and part of the bonus room banister.

 

Tomorrow, I will tackle the kids' bathroom and the stairwell.

 

Maybe Wednesday, I can get the living room done. That will be almost all of the common areas of the house.  Which is a great start anyway, for the week before school starts.

 

Is it hard to get good coverage over the red and blue?

 

[Moxie]

that sounds awful. This is such a tedious thing. Its much more fun to be rolling broad swaths of color onto the drywall. I got the kitchen done and part of the bonus room banister.

 

Tomorrow, I will tackle the kids' bathroom and the stairwell.

 

Maybe Wednesday, I can get the living room done. That will be almost all of the common areas of the house. Which is a great start anyway, for the week before school starts.

 

Is it hard to get good coverage over the red and blue?

The nice thing about needing to paint the walls is that I don't have to be careful about the edges. As far as the red and blue, I have no clue! Haven't started on the blue and have no plans of painting the red. This kitchen is seriously ugly. Red cabinet doors, old countertops (one with a handy hole in it for trash!), red trim, even the recessed lights were painted red. The plan is to totally gut the whole thing in a few years.

[StephanieZ]

Fwiw, with enough practice and a $15 paint angled 2 inch brush, you never need to tape for trim. I can paint anything, and I haven't used tape in decades. With practice, it is much easier and faster to do it without tape, but you just have to have a very good brush. Try it.

[Moxie]

Any tips for painting the edge by the carpet??

[fairfarmhand]

Any tips for painting the edge by the carpet??

 

I was painting on tile this morning and just gave up and taped the tile off too. I am thinking about getting a new brush, since this one's been around awhile and losing the sharp edge.  I will probably tape off the carpet though, because I have dk, green carpet and white paint is a booger to get out of that carpet. I still have some spots from painting the walls that I just can't remove.

[Plink]

Any tips for painting the edge by the carpet??

Use a large putty knife or metal ruler to push the carpet down and away from the wall. Easy Peasy.

[Plateau Mama]

 

Is it hard to get good coverage over the red and blue?

It is hard to get good coverage on dark colors. I have started using the Behr paint with primer. Makes painting over dark colors much easier.

[Guest]

Beware the Behr paint with primer! We used it in our house last year. Shortly after, every wall started peeling down to the dry wall. And there was nothing wrong with the walls beforehand. Now I am having to find a way to pay someone $$$$ to repaint. Behr claims it was my fault. I hope your batch of paint was not like mine was.

[Sara in AZ]

I'm just thinking how lucky you are to have trim! I haven't had any in our hallway or bedrooms since DH installed the new floor.....8 ish years ago. We've found out the hard way that we're not do it yourselfers. One of these days we'll get a handyman in here to finish the trim, then paint it, then finish up a bunch of other half done projects!

[Guest]

Any tips for painting the edge by the carpet??

 

Slide a file folder under the baseboard and just slide it along as you go.  Change out every so often. 

[Cera]

I haven't had good luck with the Behr 2 in 1 either.  I have been using Valspar paint and primer lately and am getting much better results.

[fairfarmhand]

Fwiw, with enough practice and a $15 paint angled 2 inch brush, you never need to tape for trim. I can paint anything, and I haven't used tape in decades. With practice, it is much easier and faster to do it without tape, but you just have to have a very good brush. Try it.

 

Thanks for the recommendation...I bought one this morning and the painting is much easier!

[StephanieZ]

Use a large putty knife or metal ruler to push the carpet down and away from the wall. Easy Peasy.

Yup. I prefer to use a drywall knife, usually and eight to ten inch one. Keep a clean rag handy (replace periodically so you have a pretty clean one) and wipe the paint off the spackling knife regularly so that the paint doesn't smear around when you move it.

 

You will trash the drywall knife using it for painting, but they are cheap. I am still using the knives i bought for my first drywall job in my first house in the nineties.

 

So, you push the knife between the carpet and the baseboard, then lean it out at an angle into the carpet, exposing the baseboard all the way down to the bottom. Paint. Then slide your knife down a few inches to the next spot. Repeat. When you lift the knife out at a corner or for any other reason, wipe it on your rag. Repeat. It goes very fast, and you can get much lower on the baseboard than you can with tape.

 

Vacuum thoroughly before beginning to minimize lint, etc.

 

Almost no paint gets on the carpet fibers this way. Less than with taping, and you can paint much lower on the board, so it covers beautifully.

[StephanieZ]

http://www.lowes.com/pd_313020-51834-8202_0__?productId=3078827

 

Here is one.

 

You will never regret it. This is the only way to paint baseboards along carpet IMHO.

 

I've painted probably fifty or more rooms worth of baseboards this way. It is the bomb. I can do a room's worth of baseboards in an hour or less, and I am a perfectionist, so I am not talking slap dash at all.

 

Last tip, have a small artist brush or two handy for the final round of touch up if you have large contrasts between the wall and trim colors and/or if you have lumpy bumpy old plaster walls that are trickier.

[StephanieZ]

Thanks for the recommendation...I bought one this morning and the painting is much easier!

Isn't it insane the difference a great brush makes?!

[Spryte]

[sigh]

 

This thread has made me notice that our trim could use some touching up, errrr, re-painting.

 

Will be brush shopping asap!

[fairfarmhand]

Isn't it insane the difference a great brush makes?!

 

It was great.  I am so glad I got it.  I got the smaller 1.5 inch brush, since I have smaller hands. Even though it doesn't cover as much in one swoop, I could handle it better, leading to fewer oops moments that had to be cleaned up.

 

Got the stairwell and all those banister spindles done. That took FOREVER. I really don't understand how people can paint those Victorian porches with 4 different colors. It looks bad and it must take hours.

 

I also got my kids' bathroom done and it looks incredible.

[Cafdog]

Ooh.  I just spent all of July painting 3 large rooms - including trim and doors.  You have my sympathy.  

[Joyofsixreboot]

You've given me permission to ignore the whole thing.