The old garage was looking the worse for wear. Peeling paint, crumbling trim and shabby window frames all needed some attention. The result: A gorgeous garage to be proud of!
Tackling an exterior restoration project can be a huge undertaking. Because the reno could take a few days, favourable summer skies are very helpful. To revamp an old garage, I decided to strip and repaint the clapboard siding, reglaze the windows and paint the frames, and install new trim. The chores in this garage makeover project are as old as paint, but I've incorporated a few high-tech tools and techniques to make my elbow grease go further. I'll show you how to do it using traditional methods, and then I'll show you how much easier more modern tools and techniques can make the job.
The biggest part of this makeover is the painting. Not all situations will require measures as drastic as the ones that follow, but because the condition of the underlying paint was so poor, I opted for a near-complete stripping job. You need to take precautions when stripping, as the dust of lead-ridden old paints can be hazardous. Drop cloths to catch paint scrapings and a particulate-filter respirator are the minimum requirements. I began by stripping off all the trim on the garage, including the corner boards and door and window trim.
Prep work
Low tech The siding was face-nailed with common nails. The nail heads would interfere with scraping and mar the finished paint job, so I set all the nail heads just below the surface. A 2 1/2-lb. hammer and a large pin punch did the trick, but it was a slow and tiring process.
High tech An inexpensive pneumatic palm nailer speeds up the process of setting the nail heads significantly. By simply pressing the nailer's barrel over a nail, the anvil inside is triggered and a half-second burst of hammering sets the nail just below the surface. Even a small compressor will do the trick in this application.
Removing paint
Low tech The cheapest, most traditional method of getting the old paint off the siding is scraping by hand. A regular steel scraper works very effectively. Keep a file or a bench grinder handy for tuning up the edge of the scraper regularly; carbide scrapers last longer, so you don't have to attend to the blade as often.
High tech For rapid paint removal, I turned to a Metabo power paint scraper. It spins a set of four replaceable carbide blades to shave the paint from the siding. You can use the power stripper in any orientation that you feel comfortable with. The depth of cut is adjustable from zero to 0.3 mm, so you can fine-tune the machine, depending on the thickness of the paint layers you want to remove. By hooking the machine up to a HEPA-filter vacuum, you can reduce the amount of paint dust flying around substantially.
Two blades work on the surface of the siding and two others, spinning on the outer edge of the cutter wheel, plane the paint off of the bottom edge of the lapped siding above. Each blade has four usable facets, so when you get an inevitable chip or the blades are dulled, you simply rotate the face of the blades using the supplied wrench.
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