How To Paint Old Sash Windows — French For Pineapple

Disclaimer: I have neither the will, skill or patience to take my windows beyond ‘perfectly acceptable’, so if you’re a DIY purist, look away now.

Don’t look at the absolutely filthy windows okay? It’s on the list!

I’ve had a few messages asking about this, so thought I’d put together a super quick post about it. Pretty sure this doesn’t pass as a tutorial, but I hope it’s helpful if you are also plagued by old single glazed sash windows. This will get you to a ‘good enough’ standard, and protect the wood from condensation, which is really what the paint is for as well as being decorative of course.

Don’t know about you, but we can’t really afford to replace all our old knackered single glazed sash windows at around £2.5k per window (in London at least), or the newer windows in the kids bedrooms in the loft for that matter, that were never great, but had to do when we did the loft around eleven years ago. Our bedroom windows are the two that NEED to be replaced, so that’s definitely on the list for this year, but the rest I just maintain as well as I can, until we can replace them with new double glazed sashes one day.

For this post I’m referring to the inside only, though I’d do much the same on the outside, making sure the eggshell paint is for exterior use.

You will need:

Tool for scraping the flaking paint

Sandpaper

Angled brush

Small flat artists paintbrush if you’re not removing locks / latches, but comes in handy anyway

Window Scraper

Scalpel

Primer

Water based eggshell paint in your choice of colour

Something to protect the floor

Here’s what I do…

1. Scrape off any flaking loose paint.

This window was in a right state due to condensation, despite having only been painted two years ago at the start of the pandemic.

2. Remove any locks and latches if you can. If you can’t or can’t be bothered, arm yourself with a small flat artists paintbrush to carefully paint around these areas when it comes time.

3. If you’re going from an oil based paint to a water based eggshell paint, you should give the whole thing a light sand, and you *should* do this anyway regardless, or you might choose to just sand the areas where you’ve scraped the flaking paint back to bare wood. My preferred primer is Zinsser 123.

4. Make sure it’s all clean (use sugar-soap if you want to be really good, (or just a damp sponge), and dust free.

5. Either spot prime the bare wood areas where you’ve scraped and sanded, or again, if you’re good, prime the whole lot. I think you can guess by now which I do, right?!

6. When the primer is dry, follow with two coats of water-based eggshell paint, waiting the appropriate time between coats. I highly rate Little Greene and Paint and Paper Library. It might need another coat depending on the brand and colour, or you might get away with just spot painting those areas.

7. Reinstate any locks and latches you removed, or replace with new once paint is throughly dry.

8. And you’re done. Until next time! Old houses hey?!

Notes:

I start painting from the outside and work inwards, which is quite possibly the opposite of what you should do, and probably because HATE painting windows, so I ease myself in with the easy bit first! Regardless of order, and it doesn’t really matter, when it comes time to paint the trickiest bit - the areas surrounding the actual cord, just gently pull it out so you can paint behind. Gently put it back into place when you’re done - it won’t be actually touching the paint, so you can leave it to dry and repeat for subsequent coats.

I don’t tape up windows if the glass is standard untextured glass. It’s a complete waste of time (and tape!) You will either need to be really careful or use decorators tape if the glass is textured. I just use a window scraper to remove any paint on the glass once it’s fully dry, making sure to score the paint around the perimeter of the glass first with a sharp scalpel. If you have a dry brush to hand it’s helpful to scrape and brush the away the flakes as you go.

I know that some people swear by a window vacuum to get rid of condensation and thereby helping to avoid flaking paint, but I know myself, and I doubt I could ever be bothered or remember to do it. If you can be, it’s definitely worth giving it a go! Or of course you could just wipe them down every morning during the cold months - remembering to do it it my problem. Either option will preserve the paint job so it doesn’t need to be re-done every two years.

You can visit my Amazon shop for my favourite brushes, rollers, primer and more. (I may earn a very small commission if you purchase via my shop page).