# Sunroom Windows



## Holland (Feb 18, 2011)

We just finished painting the sunroom in this historic home.
The homeowners wanted the windows painted from the existing mustard yellow/green to white (with grey accents).

There were more than 170 individual panes of glass.

We needed to scuff and prime everything, as there was an oil enamel on previously. We primed with 123, and top-coated with Pro Classic Satin.

We brainstormed about a way that we could spray them, but in the end, we felt that hand-painting was the most practical way to handle this. How would you have done it?

The HO's have been urged by their carpenters to replace the high maintenance and inefficient windows, but she likes that they make her home look old. She also understands that 'true' divided lite windows add curb appeal, as each pane of glass reflects the light individually like a gemstone (unlike 'simulated' divided lite windows where there is only one pane of glass with a grill over the top).


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## cardgunner (Feb 29, 2016)

Wow what a time consuming job. Hats off. Looks great. I think I would have done the same as you, scrape old paint from the window panes, sand and prep, prime(oil), paint x2, scrape panes, clean panes, collect check. My question is did you spray the hardware, the slides and cranks? I try to remove unless they have been previous painted. Second question is how long for each window? I figure in 3 hours per 8 panes.


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## stelzerpaintinginc. (May 9, 2012)

Looks great @Holland. For me, that would've been a perfect candidate for spraying liquid mask vs. masking and/or cutting in, but I fully understand that we painters will take the approach which most suits our strengths. I know a few painters who could brush that as quickly as I could spray, but I certainly couldn't. Looks like a beautiful transformation indeed. Nicely done!


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## Holland (Feb 18, 2011)

cardgunner said:


> Wow what a time consuming job. Hats off. Looks great. I think I would have done the same as you, scrape old paint from the window panes, sand and prep, prime(oil), paint x2, scrape panes, clean panes, collect check. My question is did you spray the hardware, the slides and cranks? I try to remove unless they have been previous painted. Second question is how long for each window? I figure in 3 hours per 8 panes.


thanks, @cardgunner 

We totaled about 60 hours for the room. We had a budget going into the project, but decided to go for it anyway. 
We came close, but were over by a little. 

I made the call to use 123, for a couple reasons. I prefer oil primer for its bonding ability, but despite being a sunroom, it was fairly closed-up (only 3 windows opened), and I didn't feel like being nauseas all day long. 123 is rated to stick to glass, so I trust it for use on scuff sanded enamel. And, secondly because 123 has such nice leveling qualities, it left a uniform smooth finish, and did not show brush marks. 

We did not spray the hardware. We were dealing with a custom color, and they were hand-painted last time. Surprisingly, the hardware did not scratch-up much, even while we were using the windows the entire time. However, there were some areas that the window itself rubbed on, that we couldn't figure a way to keep paint on, and close the window at night. We decided to come back to that spot at a later date (we do annual maintenance at this house).


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## Holland (Feb 18, 2011)

stelzerpaintinginc. said:


> Looks great @Holland. For me, that would've been a perfect candidate for spraying liquid mask vs. masking and/or cutting in, but I fully understand that we painters will take the approach which most suits our strengths. I know a few painters who could brush that as quickly as I could spray, but I certainly couldn't. Looks like a beautiful transformation indeed. Nicely done!


not familiar with liquid mask... ? What is it?

We debated about taping/masking, but felt it would have taken as long, and would have made the room very dark.


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## cocomonkeynuts (Apr 14, 2017)

Holland said:


> not familiar with liquid mask... ? What is it?
> 
> We debated about taping/masking, but felt it would have taken as long, and would have made the room very dark.


liquid mask is kind of like plastidip


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## Holland (Feb 18, 2011)

cocomonkeynuts said:


> liquid mask is kind of like plastidip


Have not seen that before. looks useful.


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## cocomonkeynuts (Apr 14, 2017)

Holland said:


> Have not seen that before. looks useful.


Also sold as spray booth coating


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## kmp (Jan 30, 2011)

I did a sun room years ago in a house that was built around1906 that had 400 french windows. Prep and two finish coats, now that was tedious. Oh looks good by the way.


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## celicaxx (May 29, 2015)

Do you guys tend to mask windows and French doors, or just razor them? I've always done window panes by simply not trying to make any sort of perfect line, and just razoring off the excess. I guess in theory you could scratch the glass this way, but it never seemed feasible to mask them and using the big 3 inch bladed tools I've always found it fast enough to scrape that way. Another thing I like about it is sometimes the excess paint fills in a gap between the window and the glass well, and by scoring your cut first then scraping it leaves a pretty nice line compared to masking with that 1mm between the wood and glass being filled in. (Is that bad that it's filled, expansion and contraction issues?)


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## Holland (Feb 18, 2011)

kmp said:


> I did a sun room years ago in a house that was built around1906 that had 400 french windows. Prep and two finish coats, now that was tedious. Oh looks good by the way.


400 panes!!

I can't imagine. I was tired at the end of this one. 
If you happen to have some pics, please post them.


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## Holland (Feb 18, 2011)

celicaxx said:


> Do you guys tend to mask windows and French doors, or just razor them? I've always done window panes by simply not trying to make any sort of perfect line, and just razoring off the excess. I guess in theory you could scratch the glass this way, but it never seemed feasible to mask them and using the big 3 inch bladed tools I've always found it fast enough to scrape that way. Another thing I like about it is sometimes the excess paint fills in a gap between the window and the glass well, and by scoring your cut first then scraping it leaves a pretty nice line compared to masking with that 1mm between the wood and glass being filled in. (Is that bad that it's filled, expansion and contraction issues?)


It is good to fill the gap between the glass and Muntins. On the exterior we intentionally overlap onto the glass about 1/16" to make the windows weatherproof. On the inside it is case-by-case, depending on what the windows look like, and what the last guy did. 

In this case we cut them in sharp, and did not scrape them back in, the same way the last painter did. 

There were enough gaps that we tried to stay on the muntins (without overlap onto glass) but some windows were painted onto the glass, and others were clean. We pretty much tried to do the same exact way the last painter painted them, but when there are so many windows it is the overall that counts. a few windows here and there that are different are not going to matter much.


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## finishesbykevyn (Apr 14, 2010)

I would have also just brushed that. Considering those are opening windows with lots of moving parts, spraying just wouldn't be practical imo. Looks fantastic.


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## kmp (Jan 30, 2011)

Holland said:


> 400 panes!!
> 
> I can't imagine. I was tired at the end of this one.
> If you happen to have some pics, please post them.


It was a very long time ago and I was working for someone so no photos and there were a couple of us so it went faster, sort of.


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## thepm4 (May 18, 2020)

Looks great H... In the past when I've painted and/or glazed TDL's (can't remember the last time they came up), I purchased a bougie 3/4 sash-type brush from an art store. The shorter bristle length gave me a little more control while the quality of the brush held enough paint comparable to standard brushes.


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## Holland (Feb 18, 2011)

thepm4 said:


> Looks great H... In the past when I've painted and/or glazed TDL's (can't remember the last time they came up), I purchased a bougie 3/4 sash-type brush from an art store. The shorter bristle length gave me a little more control while the quality of the brush held enough paint comparable to standard brushes.



Wish I had thought about trying out a traditional (round) sash brush!! Didn't even occur to me. Great idea. 
Painting TDL windows is almost a thing of the past. I get very few calls for them.









I pretty much exclusively use Chinex these days. 
2" Dale Brushes (with thinner/square ferrules, and tapered handles) worked well for this one.


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## Vylum (May 12, 2016)

would brush also, looks great. not a fan of the color selection though, something warmer i think would have shown off the character of the room a lot more


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## Holland (Feb 18, 2011)

Vylum said:


> would brush also, looks great. not a fan of the color selection though, something warmer i think would have shown off the character of the room a lot more


can't argue with you about the color. I might have chosen something to harmonize the wood tones of the door and furniture, and the warm greige color of the carpet and fainting couch.
They made the color choice as a "family decision". I wasn't about to get involved.


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## sunspacetexas (8 mo ago)

Great work


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