Hi,

My husband and I bought a fixer upper house. We are trying to salvage the existing door and window trim by sanding and painting. However, there is A LOT of it.

Is there an easier way to sand other than hand sanding every inch of trim?

Can you use a power sander or anything with power that would make the job go by faster?

Thanks.

if you're looking to remove the old paint then you can use a chemical paint stripper. Follow the directions . If you just want to scuff up the paint and repaint, a light sanding will work. Or you can just replace the old trim, which might be easier but more expensive

This message has been edited. Last edited by: nona,

Since I do this for a living my opinions are skewed towards what cost less dollars and makes more sense. Lots of coats of paint on trim takes lots of time, lots of sandpaper and or lots of chemical remover. If it's a lot of paint, then it turns out to be one of those projects where you cannot afford to pay to refurbish what you have as it is faster and cheaper to go with new trim - which will also give yo a better looking project.

For DIY, It's a question of how much is your time worth and how good a final product do you want.

Got a picture of the trim?
Older house your going to be dealing with lead paint, not a good thing.
Unless it's some exotic custom type of moulding I'm 100% with Jabee on this one.
Been there done that hundreds of times and everytime it's faster and comes out far better to just replace it.
Only time I keep it it if there's just a few spots that need some light sanding.
I preprime and paint with two coats of paint before ever installing it.
If your going to insist on sanding it use a random orbital sander. I can not remember the last time I had sanded anything.

I'm right along with Joe and JayBee and Nona.
Only thing i have to add is be careful if the house is prior to 1980's it might have lead paint. You can get it tested for lead at most popular paint stores if you can bring a small piece of the paint to them or else small piece of trim will do.
In old home restorations we will use a heat gun and different scraping tools to get much of it possible to come off. (after we determine it is not lead paint) Then we will sand it down best as we can and prime it then 2 coats of paint just like Joe mentioned. We noticed the 1st coat will sort of soak in and lock the primer down. The 2nd coat is finish coat so you won't see 1st coat dry lines etc.
While using heat gun method, you will need proper ventilation, house in negative air fan in window while you work in front of this fan and open window sucking the air out or else just work outside.
Don't forget to wear n95 face mask or respirator while working with fine particulates or else you will end up like me with a nasty cough when you try to breath deep.
If the house isn't a historic restoration or your own original restoration, i would wait until trim goes on sale and re-trim it. However you will need a compound miter saw and perhaps some instruction.
I have a few good trim cutters in my family so i've always been lucky getting them to come over and do my cutting\coping.

A worst case example:
I worked on a 1905 house which had big base trim all through out. It was a historic restoration so we had to figure out how to get the 5 layers of lead paint off. We had 3 of us using heat guns on it until someone said. DUDE ! this is lead paint what are we doing? So we gave up and the big pile of trim just sat around for 2 months. The home owner got sick of the trim drama and brought it into a chemical stripper place which removes lead paint and paid over 2000 dollars for it to be removed.
The woodwork came back spotless. Unbelievable because our heat guns hardly dented a few layers. We thought it would never look that nice.
Sometimes we just have to bring it in. Sometimes we just need to hire someone.
Most the time we can DIY

This message has been edited. Last edited by: JB Builder,

Another comment on the possible lead paint issue. In Michigan, knowledge of lead paint in a house being sold must be disclosed to the purchaser. I don't know about other states.

So if you do have the paint tested and it's positive for lead, and if you plan to flip the house and/or sell it eventually, check with a local realtor to determine if you'll have to disclose when you sell it that the house had lead paint.

Going with the other posters, it's easier, probably safer and quicker just to replace the trim.

I too had planned to renovate my house when I bought it but hours of hard work eventually convinced me that what little personal accomplishment I felt was subordinate to considerations of time, money and safety.

There are probably some other areas of the house that you can fix up safely and without so much elbow grease.

But good luck on your renovation project!

You could make a molding of the trim, you don't have to sand to bare wood. Just sand enough for the surface to be smooth.