I love my old house. Like, LOVE it. And there's nothing that makes me happier than when I'm able to salvage something useful and restore it to its former glory.
One room that has been sitting empty since I purchased my house 6 months ago is the Sunroom. The walls were this dirty looking off-white, with moth-eaten white curtains covering the beautiful 6-foot windows. They still had their original hardware, but of course it had been covered in paint. Though I didn't know exactly what I wanted to do with the space at the time, the first step was obvious: Restore those hundred-year-old windows!
Step 1:
The easiest by far. Take down the curtains, take off all of the hardware, and take the windows down.
Originally I didn't want to take the windows off the frames for fear of getting them back up, but it was SO much easier to paint them when they were laying down.
Step 2:
Prep the windows for paint. Use wood filler to patch the holes from the old curtain hardware; there is no need to patch the holes from the hardware for the hinges and locks since you'll be putting those back in the same spots. I just used wood putty and let it stand for a few hours. Then, sand down any rough spots across the windows. I opted to use my palm sander to make this go very quickly.
Finally, scrape the old paint off of the glass. There was a lot of gummy old caulk as well that just had to go.
The last step before painting is to wipe down dust, debris, and other things that you don't want stuck in your paint.
Step 3:
Now to see the fruits of your labor -- painting the inside and outside. I used two coats each for each side -- a white exterior paint for the outside, to match all of my outside trim, and a Eggshell Ultra Bright White for the inside. If you are a bit messy and get some paint on the glass, no big deal. (See step 4).
You'll also want to paint the window frames/trim to match. That will make the whole architecture of the piece pop when you hang it back up.
Step 4:
Scape any excess paint off the glass. Use an exacto knife to first score around the area between the glass and wood, then scrape it off from the glass toward the outside.
Once you get the paint loose, I used a shop vac to get rid of all the little pieces that I scraped off.
Step 5:
Rehang the windows using your newly restored hardware. For tips on how I did this, wait for tomorrow!
P.S.
To contrast with the freshly painted bright white trim, I used a soft gray for the walls. Talk about the perfect amount of contrast and bang for your buck!
