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I’ve just finished gutting several rooms in my house, and have finished the final coat of paint. None of the new woodwork oak trim is installed. I’m wondering if it is best generally to install new trim after painting, or before. Is it best to install the woodwork, and then stain and finish it? Or stain and finish the pieces, then cut them for installation, then putty the nail holes, and touch-up? What do you experts think?
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Paint the walls. Then stain & finish the trim and apply. Fill the holes and you are done.
*Ditto on the above. Skip
*Different situation perhaps but in restoring my house, which included a lot of reproducing trim with new oak, lots of patching plaster or actually adding walls back that had been removed, I did it differently. I naturally did plaster work, then trim, including staining where necessary to match existing. Then I shellacked all the trim - one coat - and steel wooled in preparation for next coat. I let shellack lap joint to plaster liberally. Then three coats of paint - primer and two top coats. It was very easy to wipe off any paint on shellacked trim with a damp rag. Equally easy to pick it off with a blade after it dried. Then finish coat shellack on trim and oil putty to fill holes. Very easy and kept mess to a minimum. (I did floors at same time as final trim work.)
*Seth, There is no one correct procedure for paint and finish. Circumstances such as timing, economics and material may dictate different schedule.As a trim carpenter, I hate working with pre finished wood. It is hard on tools and equipment, not to mention my lungs. Scraps and surplus material are harder to reuse or burn in the shop stove. And I find I still need to apply a final coat of finish to the woodwork after everything is done.The same may be said for paint. Flat wall paint is easy to touch-up. Eggshell and gloss progressively harder to do if you want a perfect finish. Some of the faux paintings are almost impossible to touch-up.My preference is to hit the walls with primer and one top coat. Then install trim. The next step is two coats of trim finish. Then I do my floor (especially with carpert, the base always seems to get hammered.) Then the final trim finish, then the final wall painting.More time, yes, but a much better looking job.walk gooddavid
*Seth,Depending on how big the job is depends on which approach I take. If I'm remodeling or adding just a room or two, I'll paint walls and install the trim already stained and finished, then touch-up as needed. If its a whole house worth I trim first, then stain & finish the wood, mask it off and paint the walls.It really comes down to personal preference. If I didn't have access to stain & finish guns and had to do it by hand, I would certainly finish the wood first then hang.Steven
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I've just finished gutting several rooms in my house, and have finished the final coat of paint. None of the new woodwork oak trim is installed. I'm wondering if it is best generally to install new trim after painting, or before. Is it best to install the woodwork, and then stain and finish it? Or stain and finish the pieces, then cut them for installation, then putty the nail holes, and touch-up? What do you experts think?