After scraping for what seems like forever, we continued our painting prep work by applying wood putty to the imperfections in each of the siding boards. This step is extremely important if you want to have siding that is smooth. The hand scraper has an amazing ability to gouge the wood and tear out chunks. Some of these chunks are actually really small and easy to miss with your eyes. I find it most effective to search for imperfections by running my bare hand along the wood. Your fingers are surprisingly adept at finding the smallest imperfections. I used a large tub of wood putty on the section of wall you see in the video.

This may seem like a lot of work. It is. You may not want to spend this much time on every single wall of your house. I didn’t. I’m spending much more time on the front of my house, fixing every imperfection, because we spend a lot more time out front on the porch. It’s also the wall visitors see the most. On the boards that are ten feet off the ground in the back corner where only the dogs see while they’re pooping, I didn’t fix all the imperfections. Take the extra time where it’s needed. Spend less where it isn’t. The photo below shows the front wall after it’s been fully covered with putty. It’s a lot of putty. If you’ve got questions about this post or suggestions for the blog, email us at oldhousecrazy@gmail.com or leave a comment below. Thanks for reading. -Robby