How I Finally Painted The Wood Posts And Fascia On Our Deck

We finished building our second story deck late last year and then the rain started. We finished the wood posts using a primed fascia material so it was not a necessity to paint them right away. My plan was to find a sunny day in the winter to paint them, but then I found out that it is best to paint outdoors when it is warmer.

Spring was the next season up and it was too wet, or maybe I was getting good at proscrasinating. I wanted to make sure they were painted before the fall rain started and a few weeks ago I finally found, er made the time and painted the wood deck posts and fascia.

Selecting the Paint and Brushes:

The first thing to decide was the color and brand of the paint. We looked at a few different colors and we decided to match the trim on the house. I did not have an old can of the paint available so we took a small sample off of the garage door, but it was too small for them to be able to process. Since that didn’t work we got a few color swatches for Behr paint and match it to the trim. In the end this worked ut very well.

Since the posts and fascia are large I went with a 4″ wide brush. I also had to paint some tight areas and cut the edges and for that I used a 1″ wide brush.

Tip 1: It took two days to finish the painting and instead of using new brushes the second day or cleaning the brushes after the first day, I wrapped them tightly in aluminum foil. This kept the oxygen away from the paint and it did not harden over night.

Preparing to Paint the Fascia

As you can see from the photo below, the metal railing posts are mounted on the front of the fascia. This is due to the local building code and I like it a lot better than mounting the railing posts to the deck floor. This saves space on our deck and since we have a vinyl deck we did not screw into the vinyl flooring to mount the rail. The downside to this mounting technique is that I had to cover the mounting hardware with tape so I did not paint over it. And it also took a lot longer to paint because I had to paint around the mounting hardware.

Before painting the fascia, I taped the deck posts and soffit.

Tip 2: Paint the fascia before you attach the deck railing posts. This will save you a lot of time because you will not have to paint around the deck railing hardware.