Exterior painting in Amsterdam

Canal houses and the protected townscape

Amsterdam's historic centre is a protected townscape and has thousands of listed buildings. The woodwork on these buildings is often still original: large sash windows, hoist beams, door surrounds and cornices. That timber is worth preserving, but it calls for a skilled approach with the right primer and gloss. If you want to change the colour of the frames, doors or mouldings on a listed building, you may need a permit for it. Sticking with the existing colour is usually not an issue. Read more under painting a listed building.

Little room on the street

You do not paint window frames on the fourth or fifth floor from a ladder. Scaffolding or a cherry picker is needed, and in Amsterdam setting one up on the pavement or the street often requires permission from the municipality. That means planning that starts well before the work does, so the permit is in place when the weather is on your side. Loading and unloading is a puzzle too in narrow streets and along the canals. In Amsterdam-Centrum that preparation is simply part of the job.

Noord: garden villages and exterior woodwork as good as new

On the other side of the IJ things look very different. The garden villages of Amsterdam-Noord have rows of low houses with plenty of woodwork at the front, and the biggest enemy there is the water that sits in bottom rails and corners. For the exterior woodwork in Amsterdam-Noord, the job covered wooden boards on the outside wall, fascias and a back door. The wood rot was repaired first, then primer went on and finally two coats of Sikkens exterior gloss on the woodwork. The result: as good as new.

What an Amsterdam exterior job calls for

• An inspection of frames, sills and mouldings for wood rot
• Coordination with the VvE if the building has several owners
• A dry spell, because exterior gloss does not belong on wet wood
• Paint from Sikkens, Sigma or Wijzonol that stands up to Dutch weather

Our painter comes to look in person and sets out in the quote exactly what will happen, from repairs to the final coat. How Oranje Kwast works elsewhere in the city is on painter in Amsterdam, and the outdoor approach is under exterior painting.