As a commercial and residential painting specialty contractor, we offer bulk molding, baseboard and trim painting services throughout the greater Winnipeg area. Oftentimes, we get asked what process we use for painting molding and trim. As a professional painting company, it is our job to ensure not only high-quality painting, but to service painting scopes in bulk cost-effectively and in good time to meet demanding project schedules. With trim, baseboard, wood moldings, and casings, it is often best to paint the trim removed from the ceiling, floor, or walls. This means, working closely alongside the millworker is best, where painting molding and trim can occur prior to installation on walls, door openings, window openings and feature ceilings. In multi-residential projects, this process of having trim removed first is going to give a better quality finish and faster finish.
Painting Molding and Trim Prior to Installation
Professional painting contractors prefer that casings, moldings, trims, and baseboards be painted on the ground first.
The purpose is to ensure that the painting scope can be completed in bulk effectively. The trim, baseboard, and ceiling trim are removed prior to installation, brought into a temperature-controlled and humidity-controlled environment, and painted in bulk to facilitate an efficient painting process.
Setting Up Painting Stations
We set up saw horses or painting stations and spray-apply our product in the correct painting color to suit your project specifications. This ensures we can consistently deliver the same finish level for every trim and molding piece.
One of the benefits to painting like this is quality control, as where every piece of trim is being painted in a controlled manner and environment, this is the perfect opportunity for general quality control, inspection, and assurance throughout the scope of small, medium or large size painting projects.
We also do this as different painters have different standards and 'eyes' for painting finish. As we work through a project, we want all the trim, baseboards, and moldings to be a match on sheen, color, and finish throughout the building.
However, one drawback to painting this manner for large-scale commercial and multi-residential projects is that the nailing holes from the installation process can lead to touch-up work required after the fact.
Touch Up Work is Necessary with Molding and Trim Painting
Touch-up work required for millwork installation, such as baseboards, trim, casing, and ceiling trim, can involve the utilization of wood filler, followed by minor sanding and then final touch-up paints.
Installation of millwork requires finish nailing, which is usually not done in a manner that totally ensures the paint finish is maintained at a high quality. So, the painters must be involved in painting molding and trim both prior to installation and post-installation on new projects, homes, commercial buildings, and multi-residential buildings.
Humidity Levels and Painting Trim, Casings, Baseboards & Moldings
Humidity plays a vital role in the final fit and finish of millwork trim, for both the painters, and millwork installation crew.
With unstable humidity environments, the millwork, baseboard, trim, or ceiling trim can shrink or warp before the building is completed and the building envelope is sealed. You want stability in the environment to facilitate proper trim acclimation. When this happens, as wood trim, millwork, and baseboards need to be installed finally at the stable humidity level for the building, cracks between components are bound to form.
After waiting weeks or even months after the initial installation of miscellaneous wood decorative trim, subtle shifting in the size of the trim will occur due to the trim's acclimation to the environment.
Post-Installation Millwork Painting Inspections
After you install your millwork trim, pre-painted in a shop or a controlled environment, we will ensure that any cracks between the trim, baseboards, and millwork casings are filled appropriately with wood filler. The filling/caulking process ensures that the gaps created by changes in humidity/acclimation are uniformly corrected between the trim. After this, we can sand again. Products like caulk or wood filler can be utilized to adjoin millwork trim effectively.
We always select the closest color-match caulk suitable for all crack-filling finishes and paint touch-up work on trims.
Painting Process for Trim
Spraying the trim, baseboards, moldings, and casings requires spraying back from a few feet in a controlled manner with an aerated spray gun for any number of paints.
Typically, trims have a semi-gloss or satin sheen. This brings a good contrast to the eggshell or flat colors of walls.
Trim installation and handling can be very time-consuming if performed on windows, doors, or throughout a building. To ensure a consistent and uniform finish, we suggest utilizing painting in bulk methods like this to not only assure quality but also ensure time-effective and cost-effective scope performance. Paint touch-ups can be performed after the fact.
Turnover Inspections
We commonly touch up the trim, casings, door moldings, and baseboards with brushes, consistently paying close attention to detail to ensure any scuffs, discolorations, or issues with the finish are corrected.
If your ceiling trim is the same color as the ceiling, we commonly paint these trims and accent moldings on the ceiling already installed, as a spray-on application.
Painting Installed Millwork, Trim, Casings, & Baseboard
While this method is not necessarily the most time-effective and can often result in a less-than-desirable painting schedule, it is possible, and it is often necessary for our more detailed, smaller residential projects.
For single-family homes, apartments, or renovation painting work, we will take our time with painter's tape, newspaper, packing papers, and other painter's accessories to seal off the trim from the surrounding environment and prevent over-spray. Again, we typically like to go with spray-applied finishes for most millwork, trim, casings, and baseboards for time effectiveness and also the consistency of finish. In some cases, roller or brush are utilized, but typically, if we can ensure no overspray or rework on adjacent surfaces, spray can still be utilized.
Turnover - Painting Molding and Trim
When turning over any painting project, trim, casings, moldings, ceiling trims, and wall millwork details are components we are frequently the most concerned about for turnover. Any high-quality painting contractor will ensure not only that the initial finish is satisfactory but also that all touch-ups are completed after installation by the millwork finishing crew.
In addition, as is typical of professional painting companies, we offer 2-year warranties, which cover situations that could arise, like cracking, millwork splitting, baseboard separation, and more, as time goes on. Once the millwork stabilizes in humidity and moisture levels, we will come back and address these issues to ensure an adequate finish is carried through for years to come.
We hope you found this post helpful, if you did, please share it so others can learn more about painting trim, casings, baseboards, and crown-mouldings.
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