Pantry Door

Made some progress on the pantry door this weekend but ran out of stripper towards the end. There is easily 8 coats of paint on the door. It was taking 4 applications of stripper to get down to the wood. The kitchen really took a beating when it came to paint over the years. Like the rest of the room there was a peach color applied somewhere over the years that kept leaching out from behind the white. Most of the white was just primer that some PO painted on and just left it.
I cut out the top part of the door (reluctantly) so I can put in some etched glass to allow the light to come through. Like the rest of the room the door and trim are made of pine that has yellowed and hardened nicely over the years. I am just gonna sand, prime and repaint white.

Tuesday

I thought I would start out working 0n the french doors tonight and maybe get some of the windows taped off before I started the stripping process. The first picture is of the door before I started messing around. So I started my messing around. I pulled the hardware off and really marvelled at the detail of the mortises. I don't want to take anything away from today's carpenters or finish carpenters, but you have to admit whoever did these sure did a great job and took their time. I mean the brass was in there tight. Pretty cool huh?




In the last picture you can see where I ran out of tape to finish off the window panes. Think about it 3 panes across, 4 high, both sides and 2 doors. That is 48 panes that need to be taped off. Really I probably don't need to tape everything off but I am a masochist when it comes to some things. But as I ran out of tape I was standing there looking at the cobwebs in the overhead joists and thought of the cool little heat gun that I bought a few weeks ago and never really used yet. I was also thinking of some of the other things you could use a heat gun for.
Like:
Making toast! everyone likes toast even Elwood Blues.
Defrosting a freezer
Ok, here is one! You only eat half a Ding Dong (I know, a stretch) but say your in a hurry and need to reseal the package to keep your chocolate jewel fresh for next time?
What if you wear Lee Press on nails? ( I don't) but you could heat it up a bit, and reform that plastic back to your finger.
How about creating a bunch of smoke from the melted paint, thinking your pretty smug about melting the paint off and the furnace kicks in and fills the whole house with that great smell? Now that is more of a reality than defrosting a freezer.

But I digress. Picture 5 is where I am happily melting paint and I hear a strange sound. Now there are tons of weird sounds that come from an old house and I really just thought it was one of my poltergeist (I don't care what you say, I have one, and maybe two that like to play pranks, knock things over etc.One I call Joe, the other? just "Knock it off") But anyhow what I was really hearing was the glass making a low cracking sound. I looked down and sure enough, crack! Ok, note to self, don't put the heat gun "on" the glass to get close to the mullions and fry the paint off. So fall back, regroup, assess the situation.

What I did do was take off all the paint around the door and far enough from the glass so as not to humor the gods with my stupidity.

It is kind of cool the way it peels up and then when the paint cools on the scraper it just crumbles off. Alot less mess than using chemical stripper. But I still need to use some stripper to clean up the mullions.

Striping will set you free!

That is what I keep telling myself, and telling myself, over and over again.

The first picture is of........my feet, size 11's thank you. Actually it is a terrible picture of a piece of base board, but basically I am trying to show what the boards look like after 2 applications of stripper and the heavy tan paint that is denying the inevitable, it will be sanded off.

The second and third images, are a question: why would you paint over such great looking wood? Look at that grain! I just hope someday, someone else will appreciate the time and energy I am putting into all this trim and doors. If they don't? they can always paint over them.

Letting it snow

That's what I am pretty much letting it do today, just snow. My apprentice (Sugar) made a trip to the spa this afternoon and got herself bathed and all fluffed up. The spa is a corner of the basement that has a shower and a big drain in the center. She really didn't like it much and slept the rest of the day. It is tough being a princess.

Below is the sunroom in all its green glory. Sugar and I decided to go with the bead board for the bottom half of the room, painted in a nice bright white.

This is her highness surveying the room as I take pictures.

I also finished sanding and staining the bedroom door casings this evening, and will get the poly on in the next few days.

Up to my ass in goose shit again!?

Sure does look like goose shit, don't it? This is what the paint looks like after I scrap it off the wood. It really looks like a goose visited the basement and left a calling card.

The door; this damn thing has kicked my butt for 3 weeks.

This is a stained only picure. I did get the first coat of poly on the door today and cleaned the hinges up a bit by just letting them sit in the same stripper that I use on the wood. They cleaned up pretty good but I need to get some brasso to give the brass a good polish. I started looking at the windows in the basement today, just anotherproject to add to the list. None of the windows close properly and you can feel the wind coming in around the sashes. So I just calked all the windows shut, covered the panes that were broke or in one case there was one pane that was to small for the frame, why even put a piece of glass in the hole in the first place if it isn't gonna fill the void all the way? So I bitched a bit and filled the holes. Thats it for the weekend.

Thursday

Well I finished stripping the door tonight, on the one side it was pretty straight forward, when I flipped the door over someone had painted the door with a paint that had like sand in it. So it was a bit more laborious, but I got it off.

Wednesday

I started to strip the last pieces of the window casings for the Master Bedroom this evening and found the paint to be REALLY stuck to the wood. So much so that I might just write them off and replace them. I put 3 coats of stripper on the boards and the stuff still did not want to come off without a fight. But I think I will try the sander first and see what the does.




The second image is of the bedroom door. I got lucky on this (again) only one coat of paint! The only bummer is that both sides of the door are painted and I have to re-do both.

I have been sitting here for a few hours and I keep getting a smell of ashes that I think is coming from the fireplace. I double checked the damper and it is closed. I hope this isn't going to be a continuing problem. Or the second and third options are the dog just smells or is farting. Or a combination of all 3. What is pretty cool is ( sorry back to the bedroom door) that the door hardware is in great shape and the whole unit is mortised into the door itself. The original paint is still on the locking mechanism, but the old skeleton key is long gone. Looking inside the mortise, you can still see the chisel marks from the Carpenter that cut the wood out. I guess there where no pre-cuts from the factory back in the day. Something interesting I also found when removing the hinges was 3 pieces of old newspaper that was used as a template (maybe) to cut the mortise. I am not really sure.
One side talks about Gov. Smith bombed his own house for publicity and the other side talks about cancer in children.
I didn't find any dates and the paper looks as though the center is burnt out rather than cut. So, if any of my great following of fans of this blog might know what these papers are for, clue me!
I envision some half drunk carpender with a non-filter Pall Mall (or Lucky Strike, you choose) cigarette hanging out his mouth sticking that paper under there just to mess with some future owners head and chuckling about "I wonder how long it will take them to figure this riddle out" then taking another swig of half flat and warm beer like Hamms or Falstaff that was left over from lunch 3 hours prior. Who knows! The bloody mysteries of an old house!