How to Paint Your House Exterior With a Brush (Pro Tips & Techniques)

You can see how fast I can get paint on there with a roller. The first tip I'm going to talk about, I'm going to be eventually show you this. I'm going to be rolling the door jam. So, I roll it to get the paint on fast, but then I go back and I actually back it to get a good look. You want to actually back brush it with a brush because it'll look way better than actually just rolling it. and stippling it with a uh a nap. So, I use the roller just to get the paint. You can get the paint on faster with a roller. If you rolled this, it's got wood grain on it. It would be fine to just roll that and not back brush it. That's okay because the stippling won't show on the wood grain. But this is a smooth surface and that will actually show stippling really bad on a smooth surface. So brushing it um is going to give you the nicest looking finish. This is what it looks like. I'm going to take, you know, roll. Whoa. It's exactly why you put masking down. [snorts] So, I'm going to roll some paint on here quickly. Get it on. I always two coat my trim. So, I'm going to work the top. So, I'm going to get my top done, work it into everything here, my corners, edges. I'm going to lay it out. So, since I've got masking there, I don't have to be super careful. So, I just roll just like this. If you're painting in the sun, you don't have a lot of working time. So, one [snorts] hint is to put latex extender in your paint. So, I'm going to roll whole thing. Now, I'm going to quickly fill this in. You can see how fast I can get paint on there with a roller. my heavy nap. This is a 38 inch nap. It gets that corner. You can see how fast I can fill that in. Get down here. I'm in the sun down on the bottom. So, I'm going to lay it out in an upward motion. If you lay it out upward, it's less likely to run. I'm going to hit it right there. That wood exposed um composite material. Need to get paint on that. So, I'm just going to press it on there. That'll dry like really fast. So, I'm using Sher Williams latitude. Um, not necessary right here. Um, latitude is typically if it's you got rain imminent in the forecast. That's what latitude is for. Applying my second coat. It's warmed up a lot already. So, man, I got to work fast. So, I'm [snorts] putting it on with the roller. Loading up my brush. So, my brush is wet. It's like drying fast, so you got to move quick. It's interesting cuz it's black. So, I see white glare and I think it's a missed spot, but then it's just white glare. Tip number two is masking and prepping. So, I'm using Frog Tape. It's essential when I'm masking the door jamb to not get any bleed underneath, especially if it was white. I'm actually painting this black. So, if it bled onto the black door jam, you wouldn't see it. But, I'm using frog tape cuz that will stop paint from bleeding underneath the tape. I'll just run a row of masking right along this inside edge. Just like that. I'll be using a ladder. So, my masking is going to come right up against the wood here. Go right inside. So, it's going to look like this right here. So again, it's really critical that you know you use a tape like frog tape that will stop any paint bleed. I don't want to paint that metal. So I'm going to [snorts] mask that metal off right here cuz I've got like exposed wood right here that needs to be painted. So I definitely have to paint that. >> [snorts] >> It's better to overmask than to undermask. Takes a lot longer to fix things than to prep. So, trim that off. Just like that. Metal's all masked off. The uh third tip that I'll be talking about and showing you is sanding. So, I have a a sander right here, an Echoan 3x4 sander. Whenever I'm painting a door jamb, I typically like to sand my door jamb. This is a brand new door jamb. This edge typically is, you know, pretty sharp finish on it. I like to just round that off and give it a nice like kind of rounded smoother finish to it. And I just hit it typically with a a half inch foam abrasive right here. This one right here is a medium abrasive. So, I'll hit the whole thing, you know, with it. Sand it down. Just make sure it's all sanded nice. If you have any peeling paint anywhere on it because of its weathered, I did have a door jam on the other side that the primer started to peel off. If you have any peeling, you definitely want to sand that off down to bare wood. And then you'll want to, if you have any bare wood, you're going to want to prime. I'll typically use Zenzer triple thick primer to do my priming on the door jamb. Definitely got some nicks down here. Want to sand these and round those nicks out. Get rid of them. So, you can actually I can feel some rough spots on there.