Top 5 Benefits to Painting the Trim on Your Home Exteriors

For an affordable refresh that also protects your home, painting the trim can make a dramatic difference that won’t require you to paint hundreds of square feet of siding. The exterior trim on your home can take quite a bit of abuse from bad weather and Colorado sunshine, leaving your home looking worn even if your siding’s exterior paint is holding on strong. Even worse, chipped and faded paint leaves your home interiors unprotected by creating vectors for water to enter around the windows. Let’s take a deeper look at all the benefits of painting exterior trim for a quicker, more cost-effective update to your home exteriors. 

1. Painting the Trim Offers a Cost-Effective Home Refresh

If you want to make a change to the look of your home,  refreshing your exterior trim’s paint color can offer an economical option. Painting the trim requires fewer gallons of paint because your surface area is much smaller compared to siding. This alone drops the cost of your project significantly. It also takes less labor to finish the job than a whole-home paint project, which is another reason the cost to paint exterior trim is less. Instead of using an entire crew to cover hundreds of square feet of siding, one or two dedicated painters can move swiftly to prep and paint the trim on your home. Trim also tends to be fairly uncomplicated. Note: Homeowners with a lot of gingerbread trim may find that completion takes slightly longer to ensure all that lace and artful scrollwork is coated completely and protected. 

2. Well-Maintained Trim Protects Your Home

Trim tends to be thought of as a decoration. But, it is actually an important part of protecting your home. Exterior trim provides coverage to the “seams” of your home — where windows and doors are inset, or where two walls meet to form a corner, for example. There are always gaps in any home construction project and these spaces create entry points for water, insects, and invasive plants to penetrate your home.

Exterior trim creates the first barrier to these elements. Paint creates the second. That’s because paint protects the trim. Think of paint as the gear a firefighter wears as they fight a fire. The protection for the protector. The best exterior trim paint offers UV protection to keep the sun from drying and rotting your trim. It prevents water from entering the surface of the trim causing mold, decay and mildew. Keeping it maintained with periodic repainting can greatly enhance its protective features. Qualified painting companies will take the time to sand, remove chipping paint and even caulking and making minor repairs before painting exterior window trim, door trim or other accents. That’s a huge time saver that helps keep your home warm and dry.

3. Refreshed Trim Adds Great Curb Appeal

Exterior trim stands out prominently on the home. The fact that it provides coverage to all the lines of your home only makes it more distinct. That’s why a simple trim repaint can make all the difference in the curb appeal of your home (without requiring you to break your budget). A new coat of paint will make your trim stand out in a good way, cleaning and brightening the appearance of your home and highlighting all of its best features quickly and easily.

4. Painting Just the Trim Saves Time 

Make no mistake — painting the trim does take time if your paint company is thorough and professional. They may need to do scraping, light sanding or re-caulking. It can also take longer if your trim has been a bit neglected over the years. However, it will still take far less time than painting the entire exterior. 

This is mainly because of the reduced amount of set-up and clean-up time, as trim is often more accessible. Additionally, there is a significant reduction in time spent protecting different components of the home from each stage of painting, or waiting for dry times on multiple phases of the project. The smaller surface area makes it easier for painters to move quickly from trim to trim. 

5. Play with Color and Find Your Perfect Palate 

If you want to experiment with changing the look of your home, painting the trim gives you a more cost-effective way to play with color and find the best accent shade to pair with your siding. A simple color switch can completely transform the way your home appears without repainting every exterior surface. Many homeowners have begun to experiment with shades beyond the traditional whites or browns. For example, navy, burgundy and black have all grown in popularity. Alternatively, if you’ve been working with colorful trim, you may find a powerful change in switching to classic white! The key here is that just painting the trim gives you more room for trialing colors at a reduced expense. Favorite trim colors include: 

• Classic white (great for suburban homes, Victorians, ranch, cottages and farmhouses)
• Stained natural wood (excellent for cabins, lodges, contemporary buildings, cottages and other rustic or industrial exteriors)
• Black and dark gray (popular on contemporary structures and growing in popularity for Victorians and other buildings with impressive architecture)
• Beige and dark brown (often used for colonial, craftsman, ranch-style buildings)
• Lighter grays and neutrals (popular with modern architecture and craftsman, ranch and contemporary structures)

For a Fast, Affordable Transformation, Just Paint the Trim!

You don’t have to paint your whole house to transform it. Painting the trim only provides an alternative that offers so many benefits. You can give your home a mini facelift and an extra protective boost without crushing your household maintenance budget. 

If you would like to learn more about the option of just painting the trim, give AMC a call. Our experts can provide you with a complimentary estimate. It will equip you with everything you need to make a decision.