How to paint stained trim without sanding

I’ve gotten a lot of questions recently about how I painted the stained trim in our new house, so I thought I’d share exactly how I did it here.

The trim in almost the entire house was a very glossy dark stained wood. Here is a before/after of the family room. How to paint trim 8

It is purely a personal preference, but I love the look of a lighter trim color. I feel like it opens up the space and looks so fresh and clean.

Here is the stained trim, which is still in our dining room. I haven’t painted it white yet, but it’s stained days are numbered!

how to paint trim 1 how to paint trim 2

How I painted my dark trim white with NO sanding:

-Make sure the trim is clean.

-Use Frogtape to tape off the edges. I have been so impressed with the quality of this painting tape and it comes in several widths.-Paint two coats of B-I-N Primer onto the trim. It is a shellac-based primer, so you won’t be able to wash out your brush with water, but it is worth the hassle. It sticks to surfaces incredibly well and covers up almost anything. It is the best primer I have found, and we’ve gone through literally gallons at our old house and our new one. It does have a strong odor, so you need to generally have windows open while you paint, but it dries very fast – in about 15 minutes.

-Paint 2-3 coats of a great quality semi-gloss paint like the Benjamin Moore Aura line. Yes, it is A LOT of coats, but I’ve found it takes a lot to cover dark trim, especially if it’s glossy like our’s.

And the better quality you use, the better coverage you will have, so it is worth it to spend more. We used Benjamin Moore Aura in Simply White throughout most of our new house.

And that’s it! It obviously takes a chunk of time to do all the painting, but it’s so worth it.

How to paint trim 9.jpg How to paint stained trim without sanding - the easy way!