Thoughts/Tips on Interior Paint?

[khigh]

I was originally going to use paneling in my CTC, but decided heck with it. I'll use paint. While the real "showplace" trailers are a treat to see, ultimately I'm going for something a little more utilitarian. It's going to serve triple duty as a camper, an emergency radio communications outpost (ARES if you're familiar) and (gasp) occasional cargo trailer.

Plus the weight - paneling would be over 200 lbs and I only went with a single axle for maneuverability.

I've painted drywall before in terms of walls, but that's it. Any special challenges to painting a plywood trailer interior? I'm assuming I'll do a cursory sand to smooth things out, but I'm not going to go overboard like it's fine furniture or something.

One thing I'm thinking is since it's not always 100% climate controlled, would exterior paint be a better choice?

Thanks for looking.

[tony.latham]

I just took a look at the interior of your trailer. My immediate reaction was this: Polyurethane. It's a great sealer and it'd be a shame to hide that wood grain with paint. If you do paint it, I'd make sure to use an exterior enamel. You're going to get some condensation sooner or later, thus the exterior stuff. And of course you'd need to prime bare wood before the paint.

Think about the poly –but perhaps it's not the look you desire.

Tony

[khigh]

The problem with the poly is that they put the wood in there SUPER green apparently, and it's aging fast, but at different rates, so it's getting splotchy.

If I'd rushed home and done it it would have been one thing, but that window's pretty much passed (note to anyone considering it). Plus it was only ever just pine anyway and the paint should help minimize the cross pieces that hide the seams that I'd have removed if I were doing paneling.

ETA: In fact, looking at the shakedown trip pics, in the picture showing the air conditioner, you can see that the panel to the left is starting to darken already. It's way ahead of the others. It may have come out of a different shipment of plywood or something.