Tired of how old looking your vinyl shutters are?  In years past the only real option available was to trash the old shutters and buy new ones. But thankfully, now days it is possible to actually restore your vinyl shutters till they look as good as new.  You can do this by painting vinyl shutters. You do need to choose a color that is close to the original color however, so you won’t be able to radically alter their appearance but just make them look better!

Here are some details you may need to be aware of it you are wondering how to paint vinyl shutters. You will need a special acrylic paint for vinyl shutters that has urethane resins in it as well. This is not a super common paint, but it is easily found in paint stores (not at home centers though, like Home Depot–you need to go to a bigger paint store to find it.) The urethane resin in the paint is the key ingredient to making the paint stick to the vinyl, as it is by nature a very sticky substance which is great for painting on vinyl surfaces. Choose a color that most closely matches the existing color.

It is not a good idea to use regular exterior paint when you paint vinyl shutters, such as cheap plantation shutters.  Vinyl expands a lot during the course of the day, expanding with the heat and then shrinking back during the cooler night time temperatures. Most regular paints won’t be able to take all of this stretching and shrinking, and you will find the paint will soon start to peel.

Here’s a step by step guide on how to paint vinyl shutters.

1. Take your shutters down.  Keep all the screws together in the one place so that you can find them again quickly when it’s time to put the shutters back up.
2. Wash your Shutters:  Get a pail with soapy water, a good sponge and a scrub brush. Roll up your sleeves and go to work on them.   First of all soap them up and give them a scrub with the brush. Rinse the soap off and soap them up again. Keep doing this till all the dirt, residue and anything else left on the surface is gone. Give them a final soapy sponge up and rinse of thoroughly, making sure all the soap is gone.
3. Dry off the shutters and move to a spot that is out of the direct sunlight. You don’t want to paint your shutters under the sun.  Put on some gloves before painting, otherwise you may have a hard time removing the paint from your hands afterward.
4. Place your shutters down on newspaper and paint one side with the paint, being sure to get into the edges of the actual shutters themselves.  When dry, turn the shutter over and paint the other side.

Once your shutters are painted, it is a good idea to let them sit for a few days before re-attaching them to the exterior of your house again. This gives the paint time to cure properly, and dry well.  Don’t however put them in the sun, but rather let them cure outside in the shade or in the garage or somewhere.  So, can you paint even the cheapest shutters, such as vinyl shutters? Yes, providing you use the correct type of paint.