Interior & exterior house painting — recent projects in Portland Metro & Vancouver, WA

Exterior work is mostly whole-house body color on lap siding with the trim picked out in a second color: a two-story in light grey with white window trim and a dormer, a white house with every window and door frame lined in black over a brick base, and a beige two-story where the deck fascia and the lower walls went dark while the cedar ceiling under the balcony was left clear-coated instead of painted. Corner boards, fascia and soffits get cut in by brush so the lines stay straight where two colors meet.

Three small new builds on one street each got their own body color — orange, blue and green — with white trim around the windows and doors and natural cedar overhangs. Fresh siding still needs the right prep: joints and nail heads sealed, edges back-primed and the first coat on before the Northwest rain gets to it.

A board-and-batten house went the other way: the walls, battens and the soffit boards under the carport roof in white, with the window frames, fascia and the carport posts in black. The battens mean every vertical edge is a cut line, so the black was brushed in after the white had cured and the field was sprayed with the openings masked.

Inside, a staircase was finished in two tones: risers, stringers, balusters, newel post and the wall cap in white, with the oak treads and the handrail in a dark stain. The white was brushed and rolled after the stain had fully cured, with the treads masked so there is no bleed line where the two finishes meet. A commercial interior got the same two-tone treatment: walls rolled in flat white, the base, door frames and the open steel ceiling with its ducts and conduit sprayed black, and the red window frames masked off and left as they were.