For more of the background, please click on this link to the Holkham Linseed Paints website - it's an interesting story! But the short of it for me was that this sounded like a paint that met all my criteria:
a) Environmentally friendly - made from only linseed oil & natural pigments;
b) Low-odour - no solvents;
c) Long-lasting - only needs repainting after 10-15 years (a coat of warm linseed oil after 5-7 years will refresh the colour in the meantime);
d) Doesn't crack on exposure to the elements - the linseed oil penetrates the wood grain rather than sitting on top, and allows the wood to 'breathe', so preventing rot/decay;
e) Doesn't need sanding back before repainting - my personal favourite;
f) Really pretty soft greeny-grey colour - Wild Sage!
As the website points out, the paint is more expensive than conventional paints, but most of the cost in repainting comes from the labour required to strip back old, peeling/cracked/flaking paint. Also, conventional paint needs replacing/renewing after 3-5 years, so the paint cost itself adds up over the long-term... If you are still reading this blog in 15 years, I'll let you know!!
It all sounded so wonderful, I passed on the details to my cousin (who is having a house built in the Vendée - hi Karen!) in case she would be interested. She bought a tester pot, tried it out & gave it the thumbs up! As we have both done a lot of painting over the years, I trusted her evaluation, so we ordered as much paint (& all the associated bits 'n' bobs) as we needed and took them out to France.
The paint is applied on top of a coat of warmed pure linseed oil, using a different kind of brush, needs special soap to wash the brushes (no white spirit!), uses different filler etc, etc, so we had a box full of stuff that we delivered to the carpenter's workshop. Holkham Linseed Paints are collecting together translations of the instructions (other people have either used non-English speaking workmen or taken the paint abroad), but did not have a French version. As the whole system is so different to standard paints & their application, instructions are vital... So, I did my best translation using schoolgirl French & Babelfish (some interesting choices were made!). Then David worked his magic and turned it into French! Dominique B seemed to think it read OK, so David has emailed the Word document to Holkham to add to their files. [If you haven't read the previous post: the carpenter loved the paint so much he was asking where he could buy it for himself; we had been worried he wouldn't like it, and therefore refuse to use it.]
The finished windows look beautiful, and it's quite odd to walk into a room (bearing in mind the house has been closed up since the windows were installed) and smell putty rather than headache-inducing solvents!
Whew! That was a long post; but it's not so often you come across a product you want to rave about. And when you do, you want to spread the word! Oh, and the people at Holkham were also incredibly friendly and helpful - did I mention that yet? Keep up the good work!
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