How to Paint Exterior Wood Trim

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Video Transcript

Hi, I am David Lupberger with servicemagic.com.

Today we're going to review how to patch, prime and paint exterior wood surfaces that need repair. In this case, you'll see that this is a south facing wall which means there's a lot of direct sun. It's also where water and snow piled up against in this case, the paint starts to peel. These are the things you want to watch out for and repair because that paint is the thing that protects the surface underneath. Let's review the materials you're going to need.

You're going to need a scraper, sand paper, wood filler in case there's any imperfections on the wood, primer, paint, here's my brush to apply the primer and then a small roller and a paint tray because when you're doing touch-up painting, you may want to cover an entire surface so it doesn't look like a patch. Let me show you what I mean.

The first step is to scrape any loose paint from your surface because you will paint over that loose paint it's going to peel off again in a matter of months. The next step is sanding because I want to see in the surface to make sure that all loose paint is removed and that I have a smooth surface. I just saw in the course of my sanding that there is a gap in the wood here. This needs a little bit of caulking. Before I go further, I want to come back here and caulk that gap and I'll do that before putting on the prime coat.

First thing I want to do is take the surface and wipe any dust off the surface so that the surface is as clean as possible. Now, I am going to take my caulking gun and go ahead and fill that gap. So, as you apply caulk, a varying amount can come out. So, I'm going to run by with my finger to make sure it's a very clean seal. In this case, I use a Latex caulk and that will be dry in about 20minutes.

The next step in the process is applying the primer. I'm shaking the primer to make sure it's mixed. And now, I'm going to put a little bit of primer on my brush and I'm going to start to cover all the exposed surfaces. And you'll see in this case, I'm using a white primer because I'm covering a white surface. If I was painting a dark piece of trim, I would actually tint the primer to match the exterior finish and you'll see that when you finish this with a finish coat of paint that a dark color over white will take an additional coat. So by tinting the primer, you save your self once step in the process.

Now let's go to the final coat. I've shaken the paint can, and pour in the paint into the tray, so that I can work with a roller to really cover the entire surface. Now let's go ahead and look at this final coat. You'll see I put down a drop cloth, I did that because I was little careless earlier and I let some paint drip when I was putting on the prime coat so this time I'm being careful. I'm going to put that little drop cloth underneath where I'm painting.

I'm going ahead and apply some paint to my roller and I'm just going to apply that finish coat. You'll see that good old roller gets right into the corner, and really what I â€˜m doing now is I am resealing that surface.

Now I'm going to comeback with a brush, because as I get to the trim piece here. I don't want it to get it cover with paint. So at certain places I'm just going to do it by hand, and complete that. But, you'll see I've covered the portion that was peeling. When you bring in and patch new paint overall it may not always match. Some actually are going to paint this all the way up to the break. In that way it will look like one finished surface. And that's the way to patch prime and then paint anywhere there's peeling paint on your exterior trim.