Painting Windows is a pain – and nothing I can say will change that. But I can offer you a perfected procedure that will keep the pain to a minimum and produce a faster, neater, more durable job, one that will hold up longer until it’s time to repaint.
Of all the wooden parts in your home, windowsills are among the first to go bad. Once sills get wet, they become food for fungus, and fungus causes rot. If the rot isn’t so extensive that the entire sill is mushy, you can probably fix things up with a rot restorer. This is essentially an epoxy-based material you soak into the wood. Once it cures, it binds the punky fibers back together.
Sticky windows come in a variety of types. Some slide, but unwillingly. Others work well in the winter – when you have no real desire to open them – but balk with the first hint of summer weather. Still others simply refuse to move at all. Windows that are just a little stubborn may respond to a simple lube job. Try shooting a thin film of silicone spray onto the sliding surfaces of the window. This may help with all wood frames, or with wood frames that slide in metal channels. Most plastic sliding surfaces should not be lubed.
Nearly every home has at least one roll-up window shade, which, during the course of its life, can have its share of problems. Fortunately, all these problems are easy to fix. But before we get into that, here’s a quick discussion of shade roller anatomy:
The Roman shade is one of the most popular window treatments around. It would probably be even more popular if people know how energy efficient it can be. A well-designed and well-installed Roman shade can often cut heat loss through windows by as much as 85 percent.