So the scraping is done. Now you want the surface to look as smooth and consistent as possible before painting. This step requires filling all of the surface holes and imperfections with some kind of filler, putty or compound. Some people think a coat of paint will hide all of the surface imperfections but nothing could be further from the truth. A coat of paint will make your surface imperfections more obvious if they are not filled properly. Interior and exterior filling are different so we will cover them separately.

Let’s start with the easy one first, filling exterior imperfections before painting. The exterior surface of the house is understood to be a bit rougher and does not need as much attention to detail as on the inside. Basically you are looking for big holes, places where water might creep behind the siding (especially corners and joints) and nail heads that may be sticking up. In all cases you want flexible filler or putty that can stand up to changes in the weather. If you paint over stiff inflexible filler the filler will eventually crack or pop out and your paint job will look bad. The key thing to look for is an “elastomeric putty” or “elastomeric filler” Ask at your local paint store or hardware store for a filler that is suitable for exterior painting and an elastomeric filler is what you should get. These elastomeric fillers dry ready to prime and are flexible enough to stand up to weather changes.

The process is simple. Take some filler on a putty knife and fill in the hole. If you are covering nail heads make sure you drive the nail head below the surface and then fill the hole. Do not leave nail heads sticking above the surface to be painted! If you are using caulk to fill cracks you should be using a good 15 year latex caulk. If you choose a caulk that can take paint after it dries than you are in good shape. Apply the caulk to the crack or seam and let it dry before applying the primer and paint. Usually with these kinds of fillers, putties and caulks no sanding is needed. The key is to get a nice smooth finish as you put them on wet and let them dry completely.

Interior patching can be trickier because of the texture on the wall. Before we get to the texture problem however let’s first get the holes filled. If you have big holes you may need to replace pieces of drywall. This article is not meant to cover that problem; rather we are talking about nail holes and screw holes from window coverings and other smaller imperfections in the surface of the wall. Most professional painters do not bother with special fillers, spackles and putties the only thing you need is drywall compound or joint compound. If you want to buy special filler feel free but it is not necessary and will cost you more. Drywall compound is all you need. Clean around the edges of the hole with some sandpaper and/or a sharp knife to remove and loose parts and drywall paper that will prevent clean adhesion. Make sure the surface around the hole is clean and then put some drywall compound on a 2 inch putty knife and make a wide pass at the hole. Normally you will want the drywall compound patch to extend 1-2 inches around the hole. It may take one or two passes with the putty knife to fill the hole. Fan out the drywall compound as smooth as you can and then walk away to let it dry.

Once the drywall compound is completely dry you will be able to sand the surface smooth. Now for the texture problem, if you have smooth walls in your home you simply sand the patch to smooth and you are done. But most of us have some kind of texture on our walls. Sanding a patch smooth and then painting over the smooth spot leaves a very ugly smooth patch in the middle of a textured wall. This is not good. You need to match the texture on the wall to make the patch look good. The problem is there are all kinds of textures.

On older homes many of the textures were applied by hand with drywall compound and a horse hair texture brush. The compound was mixed with water to achieve various levels of “thickness” and then the brush was used in different kinds of strokes to achieve a textured effect. This process was really an art and is now essentially lost. If this is how your walls were finished then you can either hire a drywall specialist to come and texture your patches or you can give it a try yourself. If you are going to try yourself you will need drywall compound, a horse hair texture brush and some drywall for practice. You need to practice (do not practice on the wall you plan to paint; you will be disappointed). Practice different strokes with the brush and different thicknesses of drywall compound. Typically the drywall compound was very runny so do not be afraid to keep adding water until the compound has the consistency something like tomato soup. This can be fun and you might feel good once you learn the technique which produces a texture close to your walls, or you may find it frustrating and just hire a drywall specialist to texture the walls for you.

On newer homes most texture has been applied with a “texture gun” and sprayed on the wall. Various names like “orange peel” and “popcorn” have been given to the different textures. You folks are in luck because you can now buy texture in a can. Go to the hardware store and pick up a can of texture with a pattern that closely matches your walls and spray it on. Once the texture spray dries you are ready to prime and paint. The key with any texture repair is that you make the repair quite large. For a small hole you may end up with a texture repair several feet in size. This helps to blend the repair in to the rest of the wall and makes for a better painted surface in the end. If you are covering many holes on one wall you may consider re-texturing the entire wall to get the best end result.

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