Over time, weather, sun, and the natural course of aging is going to wear down the look, texture, and appearance of exterior shutters. You may have chosen vinyl shutters some time ago over wood because you incorrectly assumed that they would just last that much longer.
Now you may be realizing that you were wrong and that you need to recondition your shutters. If you have vinyl shutters, it’s going to be a different process than for wood; you won’t be able to sand them down and refinishing them; it’s not going to produce ‘like new’ results that you can achieve with wood shutters.
For wood shutters, below are the steps that you need to take in order to ensure that the reconditioning goes smoothly and that you’re pleased with the results.
1. Remove the shutters from the house. Carefully remove your shutters. Depending on the functionality or mounting hardware of these shutters, it may be a simple matter of a couple of screws or hinge pin to take them down.
2. Remove any hardware. Remove any type of hardware from the shutters, including the hinges and latches.
3. Strip the old paint or finish. Using a mild stripping solution or sandpaper, remove any trace of stain or paint from the wood. This may take a long time, especially working between the slats. If you want to have your shutters the same color as original, then you only need to sand down enough to remove the flaking and peeling paint.
Be sure the old paint that may be peeling isn’t going to continue to peel as this will impact the new finish.
4. Repaint using an exterior paint. Make sure that you use a high quality paint for your exterior shutters. If you try to save money with a cheaper type of paint, it might crack, peel, or otherwise damage too quickly and that can leave you feeling frustrated.
If you want to learn more or are interested in replacing your old, outdated vinyl exterior shutters, contact Canada Custom Shutters today.
