More on house painting - windows

In today's post relating to house painting I'll give some detail on painting timber windows or painting joinery.

This has to be the single most expensive and important part of your house when it comes to painting, maintenance, insulation, noise control. Windows are also the most common point of entry, not only for thieves, but for water as well!

If you are like me, and own a house built before the 1970's, or if you just like the look and feel of timber joinery you will be facing regular maintenance if you want to keep on top of any issues.

In your house painting schedule you may want to tackle the windows twice as often as the  rest of the house. Your joinery will need more care as they attract moisture due to condensation and due to the many angles and faces will be harder on your painting and decorating efforts.

Before you start painting

First thing to do is to check to see if there is any place where water can get in and fill using the appropriate Selleys product such as No More gaps or Permafill. Check your flashings for rust and architraves for rot. If you are unsure ask your house painter or building maintenance specialist. You can give us a call at Banks Building. Before you start painting, make sure all your opening sashes are not touching on closing as this will cause them to stick when the paint dries.

Choosing paint

Choose a light colour as darker colours will attract more heat from the sun and need more maintenance. High gloss paints are the best as they have less surface area creating a stronger chemical bond between the timber and the paint. However, when you use high gloss paint, extra preparation will be required to achieve a good looking finish on your painting and decorating project.

Repairing windows

Next get your window putty replaced by a professional if it is falling out. Then scrape and fill as per normal painting preparation. Now is the time to repair any cracked window panes and rusty hinges. If repairing windows looks a bit daunting, give us a call at Banks Building. Go the extra mile and get thicker laminated glass and stainless steel hardware, its worth the small extra expense. If you are considering any draft prevention get a quote and advice from your maintenance professional at this stage. I'll cover this area in a later post.

Final tips on painting windows

1. Remember; the extra preparation now will save you thousands of dollars in the future and will give you a longer lasting result on your painting and decorating project. 
2. Use only high quality paints and fillers such as Dulux, Resene and Selleys brands they are worth every cent in the long run.
3. To finish use oil based undercoats and acrylic enamel topcoats, lighter colours may require 3 coats.

Well that's all, till next time
Have a great weekend
Andre

# 11 of 101 tips on house painting and decorating - building maintenance - Painting over your old wallpaper

Here are a a few more tips on house painting and decorating, to help with your home renovations projects.

You leafed through a few magazines and got inspired with some great interior design ideas and fantastic paint colours. You'd like to freshen up a room in your house, which has this super ugly wallpaper on the walls. Ok... so you've tried removing some of the ugly wallpaper and you've realised what a mammoth task it actually is (painting and decorating is not as easy as it looks!).

Now you're thinking........lets paint over it instead!

Before you get your house painting gear out, let's first check the state of the wall paper. You will have to make sure the wall paper is glued down well enough to paint over. Well...... we can fairly safely assume its well glued down, since you gave up on the wallpaper removal job. Either that, or you want to keep the painting and decorating to a minimum effort.

If the wallpaper is lifting away from the wall anywhere, then now is the time to glue it back down with some PVA or wallpaper glue. If it keeps curling away from the wall, you may need to tape or staple it down temporarily until the glue dries.

Next you need to roll the area with pigmented sealer to make sure you paper doesn't lift during painting and decorating. If there is already a coat of paint on the wallpaper, you can skip ithis step.
Apply the pigmented sealer. If the paper bubbles, don't panic straight away. Just wait untill the paper is dry, as often these bubbles go away by themselves. If there are lots of bubbles and they don't go away when dry,  I'm afraid you will just have to give up and strip the paper off the wall before painting and decorating. Or give us a call at Banks Building Maintenance to get a free quote on doing the painting and decorating for you. We have good house painter on the books.

Tip: Yes you should use the oil based sealer.

Next, plaster repair any holes or scratches you want to hide. This may not be easy due to textured paper, but get creative, you can hide lots under and good painting and decorating job. In your house painting kit you should have a few textured rollers to roll over fresh repairs to add texture.

If the wall is really bad you may consider a skim coat of plaster over the whole wall. I suggest you leave this up to your professional plasterer. Please give us a call at Banks Building Maintenance for a free quote.

Finally use a low sheen washable paint like Dulux Wash n Wear or Resene Space Coatto paint your wall.

Remember don't be too critical of your finished work. You will always see any tiny fault, because you are up close and personal with your latest house painting efforts.

Happy house painting
Andre