How to Paint Beautiful White Trim from A Professional Painter

How to paint trim white without sanding. Learn how to paint beautiful white trim like a professional. Did you know you can paint beautiful white trim without sanding? Here’s how to paint beautiful white trim according to a professional painter no sanding required.

Help on painting white trim from a professional Painter

Deciding to paint the trim white in your home is a big decision!! It can dramatically change the look of your home. And since trim is everywhere in your home you want to make sure to get it done right the first time! Of course the fear is you could mess it up big time. After all once you paint that first white stroke on your trim you are committing to paint the rest!

Painting the trim white also effects the doors and closet doors. So it can quickly become a very expensive update as well. I shared a whole post on how to update the closet doors you may want to check out if you plan to update the doors along with the trim.

But for me I was really dedicated to the idea of painting our trim white, but I still felt it was a bit of a risk. I was SO thankful that we hired a professional painter to help us out with our ceilings because he also gave us paint lessons on the side.

Lessons from a professional painter on painting trim white

Our painter gave us step by step instructions and helped us out when we got stuck. Especially when we were going to tackle projects that we were uncertain about like the painting the trim or paneling white. Both my husband and I were forever grateful for his willingness to teach us being a professional painter. It really gave us both a great deal of confidence to tackle any painting job in our home.

In this post I will share with you the tips that our professional painter taught us on painting the trim white. I will also share the products that he encouraged us to use. There is definitely more than one way to paint your trim white, but I do feel by following our painter’s steps we achieved the beautiful white trim we were wanting.

The finishing touches he taught us really helped to give it that professional feel. So if you are not able to hire a professional and you are up for the task, then this tutorial is a great alternative for you. I even made a guide to go with this post just for. The guide has all the instructions and a shopping list. This way you can reference the steps while shopping and painting for your trim.

It’s possible to DIY beautiful white trim!!

So if you are considering painting your trim white but are feeling a little uncertain like I was. I want to reassure you that it is totally possible! It can be intimidating but if you are committed to having white trim then by golly you can do it! Even if you are new to owning a home, and new to painting like both my husband and I were.

I have added affiliate links to this post for your convenience. If you have any questions about the recommendations feel free to email me. If you purchase through these links I receive a small commission (with no extra charge to you).

Here’s are the supplies needed to paint beautiful white trim:

• Free Printable Guide
• Oil based primer
• 2 Wooster shortcut brushes
• Sherwin Williams Emerald Urethane Trim Enamel- Semi Gloss (It’s spendy but exceptional)
• Kwik Wood Wood-filler
• Sandpaper
• Frog or painter’s tape (If you plan to do your entire house, buy a multi-pack for sure!)
• Drop cloths or plastic tarps (just make sure no paint can get through)
• screwdriver

Here’s how to paint beautiful white trim:

Step 1: Prepare the wood trim you will be painting white

a. Clean the wood trim

The first step is to prep your trim. If you have any dust or debris on your trim. Scrub it off with soap and water. Let it dry.

b. Fill in nicks or holes in wood trim

If you have any holes or nicks in your trim you will want to fill them with the wood-filler. In our windows the quarter round on the windows had small nail holes. I had to fill all of those will wood-filler before painting.

c. Sand off wood filler from wood trim

Once the wood-filler is dry. Sand off any rough edges even with the trim.Then clean the surface again with a rag.

Tip: you may be tempted to just try to fill small holes with the primer and paint. Don’t skip this step. You will be much happier with your end result. A lot of times the paint does not fill in the holes. So you still have the small holes in your trim, it just stands out more now because it is white.

Step 2: Remove doors or other hardware

Use your screwdriver to remove doors and other hardware. Keep your screws and hardware labeled in Ziploc bags so you will remember what hardware goes where.

Step 3: Tape around wood trim

This is really one of the most important steps. Tape around walls, floors and move anything you don’t want to paint with frog tape. When I ran out of frog tape I did use regular painter’s tape. Either frog tape or painter’s tape works.

Tape along the edges of the trim and ensure that you are taping in a straight line. Any areas where the tape is not close enough to the edges will need to be touched up, so its worth taking your time to tape well.

Even more importantly we REALLY did not want paint to get on our floors since we just installed new ones. So on the floor you will want to stick the tape underneath the baseboards as far as they will go. You can use a butter knife to poke it under just a little bit more.

Put multiple layers of tape around doorways and baseboards. Then put drop cloths or plastic underneath the tape covering the floor.

You will also want to cover furniture or anything in the room that you do not want paint to drip on. We moved furniture and other items to the center of the room or into a different room if necessary. When I worked on the closets. I pinned a sheet up over all the items inside.

Take all the time necessary to ensure things are well covered. You won’t regret it!

Tip: If you are replacing your flooring too, paint your trim first! If painting walls at the same time as trim. You will only have to tape once! Bonus!

Step 4: Apply Oil Based Primer to Wood Trim

Phew! Now you can actually start painting.

A good rule of thumb is always to work from top to bottom. So start by painting doorways, chair rails, and windows. In our house we decided to install taller baseboards. So we did not paint those at the same time. But work on baseboards last if you were going to paint them as well.

Also a note about oil based primer. It’s smelly! You will want wherever you are working to be well ventilated. We kept our windows open and fans on. Also you will not want your children around the smells. We had our daughters play in other rooms or outside while we were painting. Since we did our trim in steps this worked ok for us.

Even though I did not enjoy working with the oil based primer, I ended up doing two coats of the primer. Only one coat is necessary. But with two coats I got much better stain coverage. This was helpful because our trim was so dark, and we were painting it white. (So this was not something our painter had showed me. I just discovered this after painting a lot of trim.)

Tip: I found with our very dark trim the color was a purer white when I used two coats of primer. Plus you will save money in the end by using less of the trim paint, which is considerably more expensive than the primer.

Step 5: Paint with white trim paint

The next step is to paint over the primed surface with the trim paint. You will want to sand off any drips from the primer before you paint, but other than that let the party begin! 🙂 This is by far the funnest part because now you can really start to see the transformation of your trim.

I found the Wooster shortcut brush really worked well in the corners and in the places the wood joined like on doorway corners. If you are still seeing some spots where the stain is showing through then apply another coat of the trim paint. After your paint dries and you are pleased with the color you can move onto the next step.

Tip: With 1 coat of primer, 2-3 coats of trim paint was needed. With 2 coats of primer only 1-2 coats of trim paint was needed.

Step 6: Remove the frog tape & fix any trouble spots on white trim

Now that you are pleased with your results. Go ahead and remove the tape. Our painter recommended pulling off the tape folded over. Like in the picture below. Also pulling the tape off just before it dries. I pulled mine off just after it was dried because of time and that worked fine as well.

The final step to get professional looking white trim

****There is one final step to give you that really professional look for your white trim.

Finish off your trim by caulking around your trim. This is the final touch that really makes your trim look absolutely stunning! Check out the complete beginner’s guide to caulking trim & baseboards.

But that’s really it for now! You now have beautiful professional looking white trim. You reached your goal and you didn’t let fear stand in your way! It really is dramatic. I absolutely love how the white trim reflects more light.

I am working on putting together some before and after photos. Below is a picture of our dining room before we moved in and the after is after we painting the trim white!

Every room just looks brighter and more scrumptious! As I mentioned if you are interested in learning how to update your closets as well, I have another post on updating old closets into modern ones you may want to check out.

Painting trim white can be a daunting task, and I am so thankful I had some professional advice on this project. I am glad I could share it with you too. Let me know if you decide you are up for the task and tackle your own trim! Or if you have any questions.

Take Care,

P.S. Don’t forget to download your free guide to make painting your trim white easier.

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