Shutter stripping and painting

[Andrew C]

Bonjour,

I have a maison de maître in Sommières, which is between Nimes and Montpellier. If you enter maison de maître into Google and look at the images you see the kind of thing. It has a lot of shutters and some of them are in fairly poor condition.

I'd like to strip and paint them. A friend told me that stripping by dipping would be the best approach. I wonder if in your experience is the case, and whether it is possible to undertake this dipping process at home?

In terms of repainting I was told that spraying might be better than brushing. Again I wonder if anyone has painted their shutters and has any tips.

Many thanks

Andrew

[alittlebitfrench]

Sommières.......is that the place that gets flooded nearly every year ?

You could just let nature sort the problem out for you. LOL.

Only kidding. It does flood a lot there though.

Anyway.....I would just replace them with aluminum shutters in a colour of your choice. A nice provence blue. Job done and sorted.

Once you have stripped and painted one you will wish that you have taken my advice.

In terms of cost and effort.....I don't think there will be a lot in it to be fair. Especially that you will have to do it again in 5 years time.

[idun]

And I would not voluntarily have alu shutters. We had them in a couple of appartments we lived in and for all they keep the rain off the windows were ve4ry hot in summer felt like extra radiators....... and in winter, they were so cold that it felt like an extra fridge at the window.

We had wooden ones in our house and they were varnished. So strip yours down, check with the Mairie as to what colour you can have them, ie paint colour or even varnished and just keep the wood.

[Théière]

Dipping and stripping loosens the glue so they will fall apart anyway.

If the previous paint is well stuck leave it, just sand to remove any loose and soften the edges between painted and un painted and any shine to provide a key for the new paint and go.

[Alan Zoff]

I certainly wouldn't have metal shutters again. As Idun says, you get the worst of all worlds - hot in summer; cold in winter. As what was supposed to have been a temporary measure, I have lined ours to improve insulation.

[nomoss]

Around here everyone seems to just keep repainting their shutters year after year, until the paint is almost as thick as the wood ................

So, for the traditional look, just slap on another coat[:D]

[Andrew C]

Someone else told me that this week, and I'm a little disappointed as I thought I could fill a tray with caustic soda and start removing the pain. The problem with continuous repainting is thick paint, and I wanted to avoid that.

Thanks

Andrew

[Loiseau]

You'd definitely have trouble with the joints, as has been said earlier. I have some kitchen chairs that we had dunked in the 1970s, and the wobbly joints always annoy me...

[Théière]

[quote user="Andrew C"]Someone else told me that this week, and I'm a little disappointed as I thought I could fill a tray with caustic soda and start removing the pain. The problem with continuous repainting is thick paint, and I wanted to avoid that.

Thanks

Andrew[/quote]

If the paint is thick then "peel away" stripper is environmentally and user friendly and works to remove up to about 10 coats in one go