Repainting house's trim and other exterior wood ??

9 years ago

We bought this house about 5 yrs ago and it was 4 or so years old then--
the exterior paint on wood trim and larger surfaces like wood-faced garage doors and the wood fence facing the garage doors have held up pretty well.

But we are in DFW TX area and our summers have been brutal the past couple of years...darker trim especially has really faded patchy in areas facing south that get lot of sun,

We like the colors and want to basically repaint w/original shades--but there were no paint cans for the exteior left when we moved in--
There were KWAL for the interior left, so we are assuming they used the same brand for the exterior. KWAL is apparently a SW brand and our painter normally bids/uses SW Super Paint...

What is best way to determine colors to use?
Painter suggested taking piece of trim off fence which still has strong, fairly unfaded color to store and color-match for the dark trim/garage doors/fence and shutters...
And do the same with a piece of downspout since they are painting gutters.
For the lighter trim he could either pop off piece of the fascia screen or probably go just a shade or two down on the color strip the dark color is on...

The three garage doors and fence along the driveway facing the garage doors is/was a deep, dark chocolate brown--rich but not really any red or maroon showing-and want to keep it that way...

But the dark brown colors I saw on his color deck this morning didn't really seem as chocolate brown as that paint was when we moved in -- or as I remember it looking...and I guess I don't know that color-matching using a piece of wood trim that has aged will give the right color...

I just don't know if we need to start looking at other brands for their own version of deep, dark brown...
Picking paint is a pain...

Comments (3)

PRO
Lori A. Sawaya
9 years ago
I understand. Sun is brutal here in El Paso too.

I have never been on board with custom color mixing exterior colors. Even when I was in the Midwest where the sun wasn't such a huge factor.

Choosing stock, exterior colors is smarter because those colors have been measured and tested for exterior use. Light fastness, LRV don't seem important until something goes wrong. e.g. The color fades within two years, something warps, etc. Every can of exterior paint will have a legal disclaimer about LRV, by the way.

I would start from scratch. Use existing colors as reference only and eyeball a new color palette.
loves2read
Original Author
9 years ago
I looked in storage cabinet in one garage and found can of one trim color left from original painting--I think he can use it to color match what most of the trim is painted...
I went to SW local store but they were out of most of the color strips and had two idiot boys running the front--
went by an Ace store that sells BM paint and got some color samples and we found a dark chocolate brown that works for the fence and garage doors...
The gutters will need to be color matched I think--but will tell him to use a stock color that is closest--
The owners used a gray for the gutters because that is closest to the roof which has lot of gray tones in it--
Personally I don't care for the gray layered with dark and mid tone brown trim colors--
I would go with more a gray-brown greige but my husband didn't like any of the sample colors I had...
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Handymanpainter
9 years ago
I need just to add that its very important to prepare your exterior before applying the paint to the trim
- Scrape off peeling paint from the trim using a paint scraper.
- Fill the holes with exterior wood filler. Lightly sand it when it is dried.
- Caulk the seams between the trim and the siding.
-Apply a coat of primer on the wood. This seals the wood and provides a better surface for the finish coat than bare wood.
-Allow the primer to dry for about 2 hours.