Yes....paint the sash....otherwise it will look like a brown line around your white framed windows.

Leave it all be. Stain grade molding is a desirable and expensive upgrade. Painted molding is cheaper to do because you can choose lower grade wood or even MDF and slap some paint over it.

@hollysprings- this moulding is not desirable to me, the homeowner. As the daughter and former employee of a carpenter, I have seen my fair share of moulding and I feel justified in making the switch from stained to painted. Somebody who appreciates the current moulding can pick it up from the ReStore.

Painted molding is not cheaper to do if it is painted correctly. In the high end, it's always painted moldings unless the architecture is meant to be rustic/lodge.

As the daughter of a carpenter, you probably know all the tricks, but I paint at least one coat before I put the moulding up, then fill and repaint, and I think it's fun. Tedious maybe, but I like painted mouldings. Go with what you like.

Personally, I like white also as it goes with every paint color whereas stained does not.

Paint it!! THe woodwork doesn't look that desireable to me.

I dealt with this same issue four years ago on TWELVE windows. We did a complete house remodel/face-lift - removed old golden brown cheap ranch style base board and trim, hollow core stained doors and replaced with all white painted doors and trim.

I tried to convince myself that the fairly good quality, stained wooden windows would look fine with white outer trim - WRONG! They looked like black holes in the wall.

Clean them well with some TSP in your water, lightly sand the gloss, tack cloth well, prime with good primer (I like Zinzer 123), and do two coats of paint. You won't regret it.

Do the windows remove easily? If so that will help. If you are able to remove the windows, and if you are changing the outside paint color, this will be a good time to do that while you have them removed.

Tuesday

My situation was similar. I didn't want to paint the actual windows because it would be difficult (wasn't going to remove windows) and they would stick. So I painted just the molding. Here are a couple pictures:

{{!gwi}}

{{!gwi}}

In the 2nd picture, the window on the right is a casement window. On those we did paint the molding strip between windows, but window itself is not painted.

Kristina --

I suspect that, your windows being sliders with no muntin detailing, they will look better painted than left stained when surrounded by painted trim.
Jill's look great, but that's because she has white faux muntins in them that mitigate the brown.

Are you painting the current colonial-style casing, or adding a new and more detailed profile?

I'll probably end up keeping the current casing and painting the entire thing - I can't imagine them looking as nice as Jills! Thank you for all of the advice everyone.