paint trim or leave stained

janos04

My husband and I are purchasing new windows. My dilemma is that all the trim throughout our home is an amber or a deep gold color. You know, the typical color of stain used in homes built in the 70's. The window installer is recommending a medium oak finished vinyl window, which I doubt will look right against the stained trim that we currently have. As much as I'd like to replace the pine trim with oak, the windows are costly enough. So my question is...white or off white windows, the oak finished window recommended by the window company or perhaps paint the trim?

mark942

New windows, new look for your home? Trim materials are not going to break the bank. Why not get the complete new look for your home?

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janos04

Oh, I have plenty of wood trim in my home and it would be quite costly. Your recommendation is probably the best way to go as I'm so unhappy with the current trim. Guess it never hurts to do one room at a time.

Thanks for the push!

moopey

I was in this same situation. The house we bought had stained oak and we wanted to replace all the windows. We chose anderson double hung windows prefinished in white. All of the window trim was replaced with new white trim to match the windows. But the existing baseboard and door trim was still oak.

While replacing all that trim may not have broken the bank. you have to take painting into consideration. In my experience, trim thats been around for a while and where the walls have been painted numerous times, the trim never comes off clean. The paint often chips or peals off. Even if you score with a utility knife you always get a couple chips. This usually means you need to touch up or maybe even repaint the entire wall depending on your paint finish.

For this reason I decided to change the existing baseboard and door trim white.

when going from a stained and poly'd finish to paint prep work is key. First I sanded all the trim very well and then primed with 1-2 coats of zinsser 1-2-3 latex primer. 95% of the time, 1 coat of primer was fine. Lightly sand after the primer and then I applied 2 coats of Benjamin Moore Regal white trim paint.

The paint has held up fine with no chips or pealing.

guest

Why not get windows with ready to stain interiors, these are usually pine and are clad with metal on the outside for maintenance free. Check out Sun, pella, etc. wood clad window lines.Most window companies make a wood clad.

Matthewt1970

My mom had all her windows replaced and they were white. She had her oak stained trim put back up and they look fine.

moopey

good point. anderson makes nice windows that are vinyl clad on the outside and plain wood you can stain on the inside.