Articles - Giving Your Paint a Brush Up Before Winter Sets In

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Giving Your Paint a Brush Up Before Winter Sets In:

If you are planning to paint and caulk outside with an eye to preservation and weatherization, better get to it before cold weather sets in.
It's not a good idea to leave wood unpainted for long periods, because the ultraviolet light of the sun will literally begin to consume it via oxidation. Unpainted wood is also much more vulnerable to rot and dimensional change. This can mean a later replacement, warped and split doors, loosened windows and more air leakage during windy winter weather.

Here are some hints for late season painting projects:

Keep your projects small-scale so that they can be completed in one or two days.

Remember that the morning and evenings will be relatively cool so you will have a shorter work day.

Painting late in the season pretty well limits you to the water-based paints since you want to be sure they dry before the evening temperatures drop below 40 degrees.

As a general rule, don't apply glazing compound or caulks to bare wood.

Do use a primer rather than a top coat on bare wood. (Some architectural sealant caulks can be applied to bare wood.)

Don't scrimp on your prep work.

Do tint your primer the same as your top coat.

Always work from the inside to the outside of any job (particularly windows and doors) so you avoid reaching over finished areas.

For small work, especially windows, use an angled sash tool (2 1/2 inch paint brush with the bristle end cut at an angle).

Since you are only going to be painting some parts of the house, you are locked into reusing the same colors and must plan your work so that the new paint finishes at a natural cutoff point such as an inside corner, the edge of a piece of trim, etc.

Special notes on caulking: Get some work gloves and some 00 steel wool and rub the edges and forward face of the window and door trim that meets the siding. This should remove any dirt and loose paint. Do this to all of the windows and doors on the house.

To repair loose glazing compound in a window remove any loose material and clean the wood surface with sand paper or steel wool. Apply primer to the bare wood areas and allow this to dry. Next, take some glazing compound from a small can and roll it between your hands so that it forms a snake about 1/4 inch in diameter and about six or eight inches long. Break off a length as long as the missing piece you are replacing and press it against the primed wood with your fingers. Lay the blade of your putty knife against the old hard glazing with the point against the glass and then pull it over the new glazing compound. If the surface isn't smooth, gently run your thumb in the opposite direction and it should smooth right out. Do all the windows and allow the glazing to set overnight.

Seal this by topcoating over the glazing and allow the paint to lap slightly down onto the glass. Priming the wood prior to glazing prevents the binding oils from being sucked out of the glazing compound. Painting over the glazing compound and down onto the glass prevents the weather from getting to the wood under the glazing compound a reason not to scrape paint off with a razor.

Preserving wooden shutters: All too frequently wooden shutters are left bare or only thinly primed on their back sides. Left this way, they will soon disintegrate. Check the bottom of yours or look up under the slats.

Remove unpainted or poorly sealed shutters, lay them across sawhorses or several cardboard boxes and paint their back sides. Observe the above rules for preserving and priming and drying.

Wooden shutters are often secured to brick houses with cut nails. Easiest removal is accomplished by cutting around the cut nails with a tiny hole saw attached to an electric drill. Remove the shutter and then pull out the cut nails with a claw hammer. Resecure the repainted shutters with cut nails in another location or use sleeve anchor devices and screws.

To mount the sleeve anchors drill small holes in mortar joints with a masonry bit and electric drill. (Line up the shutter and mark carefully.) Nylon or lead sleeves are then lightly tapped into the holes and then screws are run through the shutters and into the sleeves. The screw action inside the sleeve forces it to expand and secure tightly within the mortar.

If your emphasis is preservation and not cosmetics, you might consider spot-priming the most vulnerable spots of your house. This involves simply preserving and priming those areas where the old paint has failed.

Never paint a wood deck it will always peel up. But be liberal with wood preservatives. Make sure the deck is dry and then daub plenty of preservative on the tops of supporting joists where they intersect with the decking boards. This is where water can be trapped and breed fungicidal rot. (You might have to cover your deck with sheets of plastic to get it dry enough so that the preservative can soak in.)

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