How to Mask Wood Trim

The most important step to painting a room is all of the prep work that goes into masking off the trim work and protecting the floors before you even break out the paint! Properly masking off your trim allows you to clean up your work faster, keeps paint off unwanted surfaces, and keeps your paint job looking fresh and clean.

First take the dry shop rag and wipe off all of the dust on the outer edges of the wood trim and base trim. You want to keep the rag dry and your wood trim dust free so that the blue painters tape will stick to the wood.

Next take your blue painters tape and pull out about one to two foot strips at a time and pull them tight from end to end.

Put the inside edge of the tape up against the trim right to the point where the wall meets the trim and then press the tape down to the trim at this meeting point. You want to make sure that the tape is not on the wall, but that it also covers the wood trim that meets the wall. Try to keep the outside edge of the painters tape loose for now so that you can easily reposition it as needed.

Simply repeat this process with your other strips of tape, overlapping them at lest three inches as you work your way around the wood trim. Cover the entire door or window trim in this fashion.

Once you are happy with the position of the masking tape, take your plastic putty knife and run it up and down along the inside edge of the masking tape (where the wall and trim meet) pressing down gently to seal the edge of the paint against the trim. Run the knife along the edge a few times to ensure that you have properly sealed the edge down so that no paint can seep under it.

Now take your dry shop rag and wipe over the entire masking job for a final measure to seal the tape down.

When painting, "cut" (outline the trim) first before you paint your wall and use a small amount of paint at the places where the trim and wall meet to avoid pooling or excess paint that can seep around the trim. Keep the paint uniform and even as you "cut" around the trim. Allow the first coat to dry, and then apply your second coat. Remember to avoid painting the masking tape as much as possible because you do not want your paint to stick to it.

Paint the rest of your wall, and then peel off the painters tape as soon as the paint is too dry to run.

Check your trim for any spots that the paint could have seeped through. If you followed these steps closely - your trim should be clean, and your paint lines between the wall and the trim should be very clean and sharp.