Priming and Filling Imperfections on Exterior House Trim

I worked this week on getting the sunroom exterior ready for a decent primer coat.

Much like a number of other projects I've done on the house, I found that the undoing - or in this case, the prep - is the worst part of the job.  Removing or disassembling the old mess is a major pain undertaking in a lot of cases.  The good news is I'm fairly far along as of this writing.

The first order of business is to cover the bare spots that cropped up during the (first) sanding phase.  I'm going to hit them with a coat of primer and then fill the imperfections, sand, fill, etc., until I get a reasonably decent looking surface.

I have this great paint mixing tool.  You attach it to your electric drill and stick in the paint and mix it up.

Words of warning: put it into the paint before you start the drill, and stop the drill before you remove it.

Or, you could dunk it in the paint, run the drill for a bit, then take it out and hold it over a canvas and turn the drill on and splatter the canvas with paint.  Then repeat with different colors.  You might be hailed as a genius.

I'm using Sherwin-Williams primer and paint for this job.  I got an endorsement deal bought these very cool Sherwin-Williams latex gloves also.  They have a latex palm (the blue part) and the back is breathable fabric.  I'm digging them.  I've used disposable gloves in the past, but I find they get really hot (i.e., your hands sweat like crazy).

These seem to be much better.

Here I am putting a coat of primer on the bare spots.

Exciting, huh?

I use good brushes and clean them after they're used.  This brush is at least five years old and still supple and doesn't shed bristles at all.

Here's that post after I hit it with primer.

Look at all the imperfections.  How bad is that?

The good thing about the primer is that in addition to covering the bare wood and giving the paint something to adhere to, is that it also lets you see imperfections in the surface like a microscope.

I won't be able to get all of these out, but I'll get most of them.  The vast majority, by the way, are places where old paint chipped off and then it wasn't sanded down for the next coat.  I've seen 3 coats of paint under the current coat.

The door on the left will ultimately be replaced.  For now, I'll prep and paint it, but I'm not bothering to fill it.

Here's the first pass on the fill.  I like DAP spackling - it's pink and turns white when it's dry.

After it's dry, we sand again.  Then fill anything that remains.  Then sand again.

I did three (count 'em...) passes on the fills.  It was tedious, but it looks much, much better now.

In hindsight, I probably should have removed some of this trim and replaced it.  Live and learn.

I've written before about my displeasure with sloppy painting of the edges of trim where they meet another surface - brick in this case.

If you use an edge too like this one, you'll get nice clean edges.  Here I'm using one for a piece of trim that lies right on the brick.  You can be fairly sloppy with the paint, but it will wind up on the tool and not the brick.

Little things like this make for a quality job.

You can also see the new section of wood I grafted in to the trim where a rotted piece came up.