Day: July 31, 2026

I’ve been painting my shutters since 16 June and finally they’re all done and back up again. I lost a few days because I ran out of paint twice and had to order some more but it’s been a marathon, ball-aching job and I’m really pleased to see the back of it. Well almost. I’m not happy with how some have come out, especially the large pair on the front. I think they, and all the rest as well probably, have suffered from having been painted during the longest, worst heatwave more or less in living memory and the quality of the paint hasn’t helped much either.

I wish now that instead of going for Dulux I’d just gone for a readily available brand bought locally. I’m sure that it wouldn’t have turned out any worse and might possibly have been better. Part of the problem was that when I bought the first two cans I didn’t realise that they were a lacquer and I now think that that was an unfortunate choice. A ‘normal’ gloss paint would probably have been much better, especially in the prevailing temperatures in which I had to work.

I also think that the first couple of cans that I bought, some time ago on line, had been mixed by the supplier on a machine, and not very accurately. The shutters I painted with them are all a bit redder than the last two cans that have been supplied directly by Akzo Nobel and this is especially true for the front pair that I’m not very happy with at all that are now a quite vivid red, although this is not clear in the photographs below. I may need to take them back down again, give them a light rub down and another coat of the darker paint that I have left over. If I do, I think I’ll leave it until it becomes cooler.

But anyway, for now they’ll do and I can get on with other things, in particular fitting a new windscreen in my Savannah as although the little hair cracks that have appeared in the existing screen are not bad and would probably not stop the aircraft being flown, you can’t be too careful. Anyway, that’s my next job. Below are some shots of the shutters as they now are and also one or two from before they were painted by way of comparison.