Painting the Trim

Getting ready to paint the house trim. The exterior is off white with medium grey trim. The trim pieces are supposed to look like half-timbers in the old English style but without being dark brown the illusion is broken.

Estimations are 5 gallons of brown one 28 foot extension ladder and one month working weekends.

Actual effort and materials turns out to be two months, a 30 foot extension ladder 6 gallons of paint, one gallon of epoxy, one package of one pass and primer already on hand.

Several windowsills had either deterioration form sun or termite damage. Two-part general-purpose epoxy filled in the worst of the damage with one pass to finish. Vista Paints recommended laying down primer before the one pass to give it some adhesion.

Preparation of course took most of the time doing repairs to the wood, cleaning, sealing and priming. Color coat took a minimum of two coats with high gutters to most difficult. A few days were too hot to paint.

The real prize was the renovation of the arched front entry and recovery of the front door. Covered in layers of paint ranging from boring grey to loud turquise, a wonderful oak was found under. A bit of water damage at the bottom repaired looked better than coated to look like a navy battleship.