Easy Tips for Painting Baseboards and Trim

Painting baseboards and trim around your house is one of the best ways to refresh a room and make it sparkle – use these tried-and-true tips to make it quick & easy!

This is a sponsored post written by me on behalf of FrogTape®. All opinions are 100% mine.

I love, love the look of crisp white trim and have invested a good amount of time adding trim (like around a doorway to create more character) and painting baseboards and trim in our ranch-turned-cottage.

Have I mentioned it was all brown – as in a very dark brown? All the trim, all the cabinets, all the wood ceilings, and much of the wood floor. Not exactly the light and bright space I craved in our often gray-and-rainy western Oregon location.

So everything got a couple coats of white paint, except for the floor and some key areas like our half-wall ledge and countertops.

But – and maybe you know where I’m going with this – there is a drawback to white trim (that is totally worth it, in my opinion): it gets dinged up and can look pretty dingy after a few years.

Our vacuum leaves marks, moving furniture leaves marks – I don’t know what else does it…people’s shoes? Anyway, after awhile you may notice it looking something like this:

Not terrible, but not so great. Especially because I know how clean and bright it makes everything look (like the whole room!) when freshly painted. In the 12 years we’ve been in this home, I’ve touched up the baseboards and trim at least once, and probably twice in our most trafficked areas.

But now that we’re looking to put the house on the market, I wanted to do a quick touch-up by painting the baseboards and any of the trim that needed it since I know how it can make a room sparkle. That’s always a good impression, right?

And while I’ve written in the past about painting without taping, I knew in this case the easiest way was going to be using a quality painter’s tape. Why? Because we don’t have any usable wall paint left for most of the rooms and I needed to make sure there were no mistakes and that the walls and floors stayed clean.

Enter FrogTape® brand painter’s tape, which I’ve used in the past and knew would give me those crisp lines that I love, which is pretty impossible without tape. It is the only painting tape treated with patented PaintBlock® Technology that reacts with the water in latex paint and instantly gels to form a barrier against paint bleed giving you the sharpest paint lines possible.

I was happy to see that there is now a Delicate Surface tape in addition to the Multi-Surface Tape, which has a low adhesion (which you can leave most surfaces for up to 60 days!), making it perfect for our painted walls.

When you don’t have access to the original paint, you want to make sure nothing gets pulled off!

The other supplies needed for painting baseboards and trim include:

• A small, narrow, angled brush – I like 1″ best, but 1-1/2″ works, too (the key is the angled brush- it makes painting trim a whole lot easier).
• Trim paint – I recommend a semi-gloss for trim (or even high gloss if you’d like).
• A small rag for any drips that may happen.

Steps & Tips For Painting Baseboards and Trim

1. Clean your baseboards and trim. If yours are anything like mine, you’ll need more than a dusting, so use a slightly wet rag or a foam eraser to get them really clean. Your paint will thank you.

2. Apply tape to wall. Use your tape on the wall and seal the edges where the paint will touch with a fingernail or credit card. You can see that our walls have a slight texture, but this tape worked perfectly after I sealed the edge. If your walls are more heavily textured, there is a tape product made specifically for textured walls, too, which you can find on FrogTape.com.

3. Apply tape to floor. You can use just one kind of tape for both walls and floor (I would choose the Delicate, though, to protect the walls), but since I had the Multi-Surface tape I used that for the floor. Again make sure to seal the edge that you will paint against.

Tip: to apply tape around trim pieces that aren’t straight, simply tear small pieces and fit around trim (last photo above) – it’s a quick tip that’s especially good for touch-up painting, since you don’t need to paint all the way to the floor, just protect the floor.

Tip: to make trim and touch-up painting as easy as possible, keep your trim paint in a small, labeled jar that’s easy to grab when you need. When using the paint in the jar, make sure to press your brush on the top sides, not on the very top of the jar (you can see above where I wiped my brush), and you will always keep your lid clean for easy-on, easy-off.

Bonus: the lid is a great place to rest your brush when painting too!

4. Paint baseboards and trim. Use one coat for touch-ups and two if painting a new color. Use the angle part of the brush for the sides and tops of the trim, and the flat part for the rest.

5. Remove tape while it’s still wet. Pull at an angle for the best results and if you’re anything like me you will get a thrill at seeing those clean surfaces and crisp edges!

Tip: roll the tape with wet paint inside as much as possible and keep a piece of newspaper nearby to roll the tape onto (and use the rag for any that gets on your hands). When you’ve filled the paper, simply roll it up with the wet tape inside and throw away. It minimizes the mess and there’s no wet paint in your trash can.

6. Enjoy your sparkling trim and refreshed room! 

I’m happy to report that all of the wall paint stayed put and the trim looks so clean and fresh, it makes me remember why I love white trim so much.

I plan on painting baseboards and trim in more key places for the house to show the best when we put it on the market, and I’m glad I found this no-worry way to get it done quickly.