Fresh Prince Does Trim?

So it wasn't the Fresh Prince after all. But apparently he sent one of his minions to make sure we do the trim right this time.

I guess doing trim is below the prince.
c'est la vie.

In the past, we've done trim the hard way. We bought very cheap wood. We didn't sand it and we didn't prime it. We painted before we installed. We nailed with a hammer.



There are a massive number of problems with this philosophy.
1. Buying cheap wood introduces a number of problems aside from looking cheap
2. Painting trim before you put it on the wall causes it to bow or skew
3. Without sanding and priming, the trim looks.....cheap
4. You're reminded everyday thereafter that you didn't correct 1 through 3

From the start we decided to spend a little more and get nicer wood. We decided on Pine. Most all of the planks were perfectly straight and the surfaces were dang near perfect. There were zero knots and very little sanding would be needed.

The addition of prime is minimal. It costs very little and a light coat is all that is needed. It dries within minutes.

Right after priming, we sanded these suckers. Here is another good tip: Don't sand manually.
We had this vibrating sander before we started all of this but they cant cost more than $30. doing it this way saved me a lot of time and a lot of energy.

I actually laid the trim out in the rooms before we
primed them just to make sure my measurements were correct.

Here is a tip that is one of the most valuable I can give you in renovation: Buy or borrow an Air Compressor and Pneumatic nailer!

This saves so much time I can't even express it without throwing a desk on your head. This is a 27 gallon air compressor tank I borrowed from my boss. I'm in I.T. so only God knows why my boss has a 27 Gallon air compressor, but whatever.

I was able to get all of the trim nailed up to the walls in both rooms in under 2 hours. Be careful around the kids because these suckers are quick and strong. I'd never used one before but they are simple instruments.

Next, we filled the gaps and nail holes with wood filler. I didn't want any obvious seams to show.





A little bit of light sanding the next day, a quick wipe down of all of the trim on the wall, and we're ready to paint.

WE didn't hesitate this time. We bought our paint from Lowe's as to avoid doing a thousand coats.
I calked the trim before we painted. This made it easier because we only had to tape the carpet.



Here is the trim up and finished.
Looks pretty dang good. Minion can move on.

Thank you, Fresh prince, for the supervision.