Masking Windows for Exterior Spray Painting
Shorten the process by protecting your windows.
One of the biggest benefits of spraying exterior paint is that the application goes quickly. You pay the price in prep work, though, especially covering windows and doors in carefully prepped pieces of plastic and neat lines of painter’s tape.
Recently faced with the daunting task of repainting the exterior of my entire house, I’ve been looking for any way possible to streamline the process. I got the idea to use my removable storm windows as the layer of protection over my old windows. I bought 1-mil plastic sheeting, laid it out on the ground, and placed my storm windows exterior side down on the plastic. Then I cut the plastic, leaving enough to wrap around the back of the storm windows, and taped it off. I found that I didn’t need to be too fussy with securing the plastic because placing the storm windows back on the house created a pretty tight seal to keep the plastic in place. With my windows covered, I was free to apply paint without any worries of overspray.
Justin Fink, Plainville, CT
Edited and Illustrated by Charles Miller
From Fine Homebuilding #237
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For double-glazed windows which have pop-in screens, covering the screens with a clear plastic garbage bag and installing them is a good way to go - even when you are not spraying. Depending on just how they are designed, there may still be one surface that needs manual painting.