new windows

Remember I said I had been doing a project with windows, well here is the low down.

We needed two windows for the new bathroom, one for the toilet and one for the  shower room. 

I had a rough idea of sizes I needed so I headed to the local secondhand building place.

There I found, well I didn't really find them, they were right at the front and screaming out  

"Pick me! Pick me!"

Two brand new looking windows. 

One obviously a toilet window and the other a little larger was a bathroom window with bubbly glass to make it hard to see in.

The toilet window looked brand new never been used, the bathroom one also looked very new but had been installed because it had some silicone stuck around the edges and some screw holes. 

Looked like they came from the same place and the owners had changed their minds about them, 

their loss my gain. 

They were priced at $80 each. 

Now while I hadn't got any quotes from new window places I had replaced a pane of glass in a similar sized window a few years ago and it cost $70 - so I knew that these were a bargain. 

There was only one problem - they were cream, I wanted white. 

So guess what my project has been?? 

Yep you guessed it I painted them!!

So here is some step by step instructions on how to paint a powder coated aluminum window.

First off I cleaned the window really well, they had been sitting on dirt so they were dusty on the bottom.

Then I used this wonderful stuff called ESP, I used it once before when I painted over tiles in our previous house and knew it worked well.

 I taped up the window with scrap paper and tape, A4 size was perfect. 

After leaving it for the required 90 minutes I set up this rather exotic looking spray booth and set to spray painting over the powder coating.

 Several light coats later it looked like this, you can see the difference with the other window. 

I then moved the paper to the other side and painted it too.

 The second window was a little trickier to do as it had some silicone sealer on the edges.

First I scraped as much as I could off with my sharp craft knife and then I went to my BFF Google and came up with all sorts of things, but the winner was petrol (gasoline).

After getting some out of the car shed I applied it with a piece of paper towel. 

I thought it might have dissolved it and maybe it would have if I had left it for a while, but once it was on it seemed to break the seal to the window and was easy enough to just scrape off.

So you heard it here first folks petrol is the bomb when it comes to removing silicone.

I then finished my prep with the ESP and painted it.

Now I have two great looking white windows ready to install.

If I did it again the only thing different I would do is buy the Appliance White rather than the gloss white to get that bright white finish.

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