House Painting Tip

Last evening, my family and I started painting the trim of our house. We painted all the trim except for around the windows in the back. So, this morning, I painted the back. The weather is so beautiful especially in the morning! There was a cool breeze gently blowing, the grass smelled so sweet and the birds kept me serenaded while I worked.

Painting a house takes time, patience and a steady hand if you want your house to look nice. I am, by no means, professional and so I like to use whatever helpful tool I can find to help me especially when doing the details. Well, I didn't have the right tool, so i made one! J

If you are painting small detail areas like this...

...but don't want it to turn out like this...

...then, unless you have the skill and steady hand, you need some kind of tool to help out. They do sell different things that would probably work better, but all I had were brushes and rollers. So, I got to thinking and this is what I came up with:

All it is, is one piece of cardstock folded over twice lengthwise. Then, I put a strip of duct tape at the edge, folding the tape over to the other side. This way, they paint won't soak through the paper and you can wipe it clean (especially helpful because you'll need to wipe the back side to keep it clean. 

Just line the tape side of the tool up against the surface you are painting covering the area you don't want painted like this:

Here I used my homemade edger tool. Much better! Except, I see that I missed a couple spots. But, don't you just love that clean edge?

I had used a piece of cardboard wrapped in plastic wrap. Although the cardboard was sturdy, it was too thick preventing the brush from getting all the way to the very edge. 

Here's a final before and after picture: