525,600 Minutes of Trim Painting

Five hundred twenty five thousand six hundred minutes
Five hundred twenty five thousand moments are gone
Five hundred twenty five thousand six hundred minutes
How do you measure, measure a year?

In cleaning, in taping
In painting, in Netflix movies
In touch-ups, in mess, in iced tea, in snacks
In five hundred twenty five thousand six hundred minutes
How do you measure, a year in the life?

How about trim?
How about trim?
How about trim?

Measure in trim

Seasons of trim
Seasons of trim 

A year has gone by since I posted my first post about beginning to tackle all of the wood trim in the house, hence my alternate lyrics to a song in one of my favorite musicals, Rent.  In reality, it has actually taken me more like two years because in the first month of moving into our house, two years ago I was on my knees painting the beige trim in F's room white (one of the more annoying realizations which we didn't notice until we started painting the walls). When we moved in, the upstairs generally had white trim (or beige as was the case with F's room) and the downstairs had wood trim work.  

Living Room on Move-in Day 

F's Room on Move in Day

I am not absolutely opposed to wood trim- I think it looks amazing in Craftsman houses and old Victorians but I have an OCD thing that gets especially twitchy when trim color changes throughout the house.  Not only did we already have white trim upstairs and wood downstairs but in the den, bedroom and bathroom downstairs the wood trim was a different color and style than the rest of the downstairs.  ::see eyelids twitching uncontrollably::  After we initially painted all the walls in the house, the wood trim seemed to fit better and look more updated but I just couldn't deal with the different trim on the first floor so I bit the bullet and fell down the rabbit hole of painting.

As I am finally nearing the end of endless walls of trim work and windows, I thought I would delight you with some numbers.  

13 Rooms

The whole downstairs had wood trim so everything needed 4 coats of primer and paint.  The attached porch did have white trim but it was badly worn so this also took 4 coats all around.  Both bedrooms upstairs as well as the hallway had white trim but again, it was badly worn so this all had to be redone.  Andy put in new trim when he opened the office nook and stairwell and renovated the bathroom so all this bare wood needed 4 coats as well.

21 Windows

Each window took about 1 hour per coat (so 4 hours total per window).  I trimmed only on the outside of the windows since it is very each to use a blade to later clean up any paint that got on the glass. I think the trickiest part of windows is making sure you don't paint them shut so you have have open/close them frequently as you go along which is not pleasant during the winter. (Yes, I have been known to paint wearing my fall gloves).

9 Interior Doors

6 of these were flat panel so I was able to use a roller (YAY) but the other 3 were paneled so I used a large brush.

3 Exterior Doors

Dining Room Door

Kitchen Door

Den Door

The exterior doors were all primed with 2 coats of Zinsser 1,2,3 and then painted with Glidden Natural Linen.  We had tons of paint samples, mostly ranging from yellows to beiges.  We taped the chips on all the doors looking at how the color looked with the exterior paint color as well as the interior color of each room and how the paint color changed in different lights during the day.  Nothing like a good coat of paint to update 70s doors.  I LOVE this color.

14 Doorways

I hate doing doorways... it always seems endless.

Miles and Miles of Baseboard Trim

9 Hinges Spray Painted Black

Who knew hinges were so expensive?  Instead of replacing to match the new knobs, Andy used a black spray paint on all the brass ones.

6 Replaced Doorknobs

We replaced all the 1970s brass doorknobs with Gatehouse Baron Aged Bronze Mushroom Knobs from Lowes.  This was generally and easy change over but on a few of the doors, Andy had to resize the holes for the latching mechanism.  I generally would have gotten silver knobs but I saw the aged bronze (which look black) on another blog and loved them.  I think they look so great on the white and tan doors.

2 Rolls of Painters Tape

I typically don't use painters tape when painting rooms.  I think it takes too much time to apply painters tape correctly and you still often have to touch up.  For me, it is faster to use a good angled brush for cutting in, working slowly than taking the time to tape.  I did tape for the trim work, though because I had to do so many coats it was worth the time to tape.  Also, the baseboard trim on the first floor has a weird lip at the top that was impossible to paint without getting paint on the walls.  Mostly the tape did a good job but I had to do some touch up in the playroom where we painted over paneling because the tape pulled the wall paint off a bit in places.

4 Coats of Paint (2 gallons of each primer and paint and 1 gallon of exterior door paint)

2 coats of Zinsser 1, 2, 3 and 2 coats of True White in semi-gloss for the trim and interior doors and 2 coats of Glidden Natural Linen in semi-gloss for the exterior doors.

88 Episodes of "Queer Eye for the Straight Guy"

Nothing passes the time like junk TV.

Did you know that you should apply hair product like pomades and clays from the back of your hair to the front?  Especially helpful for women pixie cuts!  Also, if your wool sweater shrinks a bit, soak it in cold water and conditioner, rinse and gently stretch back into shape! 

$100

Calculating paint costs and tape, doing the trim in the entire house was about $100.  Thank goodness my labor costs are Zero.99. 

200 Hours of My Life... Gone

Prepping the exterior door in the dining room by sanding it.  It was crackle finished and old so I wore a respirator just in case.  This is my typical painting outfit.

When did I get it all done?  Well, I generally tackled one room at a time doing all the taping, priming and painting of everything in the one room.  Each coat of every window took about 1 hour so I would often do one coat of a window during nap time time and throw my paintbrush in a bag in the fridge so I wouldn't have to clean it every time.  Everything else was in easy kid hand range so I typically did the baseboard trim and doors at night once the kids were asleep to keep wet paint handprints to a minimum (though they did happen).  Sometimes I could get a room done in a week if we had an impending date where company was coming and other times, weeks would go by in between coats (this happened a lot during the summer when we would get a sudden hot week and it would be unbearable to be painting).  On a few weekends, Andy would take responsibility for the kids outside so I would be able to get a good chunk of 5-7 hours painting a section during the day.

100% Worth It.

Totally and completely.