We want to buy this paint for some work around the home - we need it to paint some beams and have read that this is the best paint for our purpose. We have found it on Amazon.fr but it has a 23.99€ delivery charge which we are not willing to pay. (You can buy it in half litre tins without delivery charges but the price for buying two tins would be too high). We have also been on the Zinsser website but they do not do free shipping to France (only Germany and Austria).
So our question is do you know of a place in France where we can buy this paint (1 litre size) at a reasonable price with no delivery charges.
Alternatively, is there a good (and I mean good) equivalent. They are old beams which have been painted with a dark brown gloss paint and we want to prime and seal them. We don’t want any of the brown colour to bleed through.
The basis of Zinzer is shellac in alcohol or some other spirit that’s fast evaporating. So I would look for a shellac based paint in France. As it was widely used for french polishing I would imagine there is something similar.
Is Amazon UK refusing to send it ? It’s usually on there.
Otherwise have you checked the French Screwfix?
Lastly I am pretty sure a few of the very large DIY suppliers in Germany would send to France for an extremely moderate cost if you can find it in stock there.
Thanks, but it wasn’t that difficult, in fact it was rather rewarding. One difference between that method and sandblasting is that the plastic cup brush (not a bare wire one!!) burnishes and emphasises the hard wood grain and gives it a sheen before the wax is applied.
I have chêne plafond francais but thankfully they were just dirty and no one had painted them.
I think wood should be kept with a natural finish and even if there is any new wood introduced. New wood just adds to the story of the house.
Ours had six centuries’ of dirt, but it wasn’t that much really. I was reminded of Quentin Crisp’s observation on housework in The Naked Civil Servant that, ‘There is no need to do any housework at all. After the first four years the dirt doesn’t get any worse.’
Stuart tasked me with searching the internet for distributors of the Zinsser paint he wants. I did a lot of research. I looked on German DIY suppliers - they would only post to Germany and Austria. I looked on Belgian websites - they would only deliver to Belgium and Holland. No one delivered to France. Amazon.uk has the paint but when I put it in the basket, the message came up that it could not send the item from the UK to France. So this left the French distributors. The nearest one to us is at Thouars. So our choice now is that we can get the Zinsser Plus 2.5litre cheaper from Amazon.fr (this includes 9.90€ delivery) than it is at Thouars (112.27€ plus our travel costs). Whether we want/need 2.5L is up to Stuart to decide.
We won’t be pursuing the sand-blasting route - too messy and too expensive but @DrMarkH’s way with a plastic cup brush sounds interesting. We haven’t got as many beams to do as Mark, but at 80 years old, jobs like this are becoming more difficult for Stuart. Painting would be easier.
Over to you dear husband - please make your choice.
My amazing lady found a way to lighten our oak beams with frenchic paint & 2 coats of wax, they looked so much brighter & lighter, with a beautiful grain, I shall find the details…think it was on Facebook.
- please make your choice.
