The Historic District

Aw, man....I'm so sorry to hear of the bum health news. My SIL just finished her chemo for breast cancer...really sucks but you'll get through it. And don't worry about the house. Your wife is right, it will be around for a long time. Far more important is that you are as well to enjoy it. Good wishes coming your way!

Eperot wrote:Aw, man....I'm so sorry to hear of the bum health news. My SIL just finished her chemo for breast cancer...really sucks but you'll get through it. And don't worry about the house. Your wife is right, it will be around for a long time. Far more important is that you are as well to enjoy it. Good wishes coming your way!

Thank you!

My spirits received a timely boost yesterday - after my 5th infusion - as my team at Sloan reported that my PET scan came back negative, indicating significant shrinkage. Yes, shrinkage. One more negative PET scan at the conclusion of treatment is "predictive of eradication." Each treatment is one step closer to being cured!

In the meantime, I had a quote from someone for $4500! I think they are woefully low, but I am going to pursue it. I think I would want them to chemical strip and complete all necessary steps short of staining. I'd like to bring in someone I know does amazing work and pay a bit more for the finish portion. But for that initial sum, Jess and I can swing it and likely complete the floors and the outside patio. Maybe even get the brick apron of our house sand blasted! Either way, once the inside is done we can likely get it reassessed to borrow a bit for my garage

Hurray for good news!

I have just joined this community and was reading on your beautiful house and wanted to ask you about your stripping process. All our doors are original and so are the baseboards/trim/molding. They are also all covered in 4 layers of paint. I saw on your blog you used a heat gun and wanted to ask you more about yalls process on this. I steered away from a heat gun because of fear of igniting something behind the molding or baseboards and causing a fire and I found that chemical paint stripper absolutely ruined the wood so I stopped with that and just have been chipping away by hand with a really good scrapper. I can't bear the thought of not exposing all the beautiful wood, especially since the continual paint over looks so cheap but man, the labor and patience involved in this process is a lot. So any advice, tools or mentally, would be greatly appreciated!

Reagas, heat gun is the way to go. Common sense and not holding the gun still in one spot is enough to keep you from burning the home down. I would suggest good ventilation though.
One other thing, look at paint stripping as a zen thing. And don't turn it into work work. That goes against the zen thing.

It tools us months but the heat gun (we went through three of them) is the way to go.

You're going to have to use some product afterwards to get off the residue that remains, and it shouldn't ruin the wood. This is he step we are outsourcing now since I got sick. I will report back late this week with before and after photos on this step.

So, in short:

Step 1: die a bit inside at the thought of spending hours stripping paint
Step 2: heat gun
Step 3: remove residue with stripper
Step 4: neutralize stripper if necessary
Step 5: wipe down with tack cloth
Step 6: apply wood conditioner if necessary
Step 7: determine finishing step - ie stain, shellac, varnish, etc
Step 8: revel in beauty of restored wood

We finally got moving on the four remaining first level radiators. The system was drained, and the radiators were put into the center of each room. This will allow me/painter to finally give the behind-the-radiator area the attention it deserves. It's likely been 100+ years since anyone has moved these things! In the coming days/weeks they will then be brought to be sandblasted and powder coated like the upstairs radiators. Pictures to follow!

The step I loathe is the chemical stripper. But other than that, I enjoy stripping wood. Thankfully we barely have any painted wood but in all these years I've hardly stripped any because of my aversion to the chemical stripper..

Ober, I just saw your update now. I've been only popping in here and there these days on account of having a new infant at home now, so I guess I missed it.
I'm so sorry you are going through all that with your health- but I am very happy to hear about your good result on the PET scan. I'm sure you will beat this and kick butt! I think you are doing the right thing in prioritizing your health and contracting out some of the work- you don't want to burn the candle at both ends.
All the best to you!


Also, since the topic was already raised... I used a heat gun to strip the paint off my bannisters and handrail a while back. It was effective but holy moly what a pain. I have another handrail on the opposite side that I haven't tackled yet (it got put on the backburner during my last pregnancy- nothing like having lead paint fumes around and being pregnant!). The handrail is adhered directly on the wall (no bannisters) and it's kind of curvy- and is like one long cylinder on a trim backing that also has grooves. I was actually hoping to ditch the heat gun for this and just use a chemical stripper (I've found that nooks and crannies, in addition to round edges are extra challenging for a heat gun).
Gothic, are you saying I should just stick to the heat gun?

Jet - thank you for the kind words. I am feeling pretty good overall. Thursday's chemotherapy session will officially get me over the halfway point!

Honestly, I think the heat gun is the best way. It provides steady progress and gets off many layers at once. If the wood was shellacked/varnished prior to painting, the process is much easier. With the painter (he's the one stripping the wood) coming Thursday, I have a bit to do. With the radiators removed, the picture shows under the windows that have never been touched (other than the bit I stripped before remembering I wanted a before picture). I've done miles of this stuff.