The Historic District

The first week I was here on the Gulf Coast, temperatures were in the 70s during the day, but then they plunged. 40s during the day and low 20s at night for the past couple of weeks. I just had a palm tree installed and was worried about it and a couple of other landscape plants I picked up, but everything seems OK. Temperatures are warming up - 60s daytime, high 40s-low 50s at night, which is normal for the season. I had hoped to do some window restoration this trip, but it's been too cold.

Natural woodwork is worth just about any effort, as far as I'm concerned. I love it. My only concern is how time-consuming restoration will be, but I'll try to get more efficient as I go.

Manalto, the flat areas strip really fast, the finicky details seem to take for ever to get scraped. Well worth the effort in my view.
I have developed an over hand technique using a heat gun. Lead the scraper with the heat gun about an inch or two, either left over right or other way around depending on were I’m Scraping.

I couldn't agree more. The old woodwork in our houses is akin to the chrome on an old car. You can paint over it but it is never the same as restoring it properly and it is so quick and easy to break out a can of paint and ruin the woodwork. over time those chances increase and at this point, so much is painted that it has become a rich feature and worth preserving. New ones use shiny plastic with an artists rendition of "wood" printed on it, and you can get that too for your old house, if you want your house to be that.

Let's not fall into the trap of the myth of thinking that all wood in old houses was once finished with stain and varnish... much of it, particularly in lesser rooms, but even in parlors was painted. In very old houses it was more often than not painted, or sometimes just left bare

Yesterday was a very special day, ladies and gentlemen. Because it was the day I finally removed the last of the over #75 contractor bags of construction debris out of the basement! PHEW!!!! What a feeling of relief!

Well that’s great to hear, now you have room for the next round of restoration.

Corsetière wrote:Yesterday was a very special day, ladies and gentlemen. Because it was the day I finally removed the last of the over #75 contractor bags of construction debris out of the basement! PHEW!!!! What a feeling of relief!

Holy cow ! A big round of applause for that accomplishment !

Woo hoo!

Willa wrote:

Corsetière wrote:Yesterday was a very special day, ladies and gentlemen. Because it was the day I finally removed the last of the over #75 contractor bags of construction debris out of the basement! PHEW!!!! What a feeling of relief!

Holy cow ! A big round of applause for that accomplishment !

ha ha! Thanks! It feels pretty major!

Corsetière wrote:Yesterday was a very special day, ladies and gentlemen. Because it was the day I finally removed the last of the over #75 contractor bags of construction debris out of the basement! PHEW!!!! What a feeling of relief!

Wow very nice, congrats!!

Corsetière wrote:...I finally removed the last of the over #75 contractor bags of construction debris out of the basement! PHEW!!!!

Yay! Now on to the fun stuff!

Today it dawned on me that I'll be leaving the house in about a week and when I return, unless I do something about it, I'd have to look at that godawful lavender paint again:

319 Fifth Living room (3) by James McInnis, on Flickr

So, I got busy stripping paint with the heat gun, revealing the original dark-stained oak with beautiful grain. The mantle was first, then one side of the staircase and finally, the trim on the staircase wall. It's slow going, but a real boost to my restoration enthusiasm. Even the picture molding is varnished (shellacked? The finish melts quite easily.) natural wood so that's getting the heat treatment too. Although the walls are still that depressing muddy plum color, getting a glimpse of the woodwork (there is still quite a bit of residue from the stripping process) was gratifying indeed.