Strip and stain, or strip and repaint?

[Corsetière]

I am working on striping the woodwork here. I did the handrail on the front stairs and it turned out so beautifully that it gives me incentive to do the rest of the room! I am extremely happy with the shellac finish I applied. The woodwork here was painted so badly that it really had to be stripped regardless of whether I wanted a painted finish or a stained one.

I have seen some period painted finishes that were absolutely stunning too...so you could make it work. And you also don't necessarily have to do each room in the same finish if staining the whole house seems daunting...

[Gothichome]

KMarisa, I am currently working on a window with the exact problem you describe. Going away for the weekend but but should be finished mid week. I'll post pics when I'm finished.

[heartwood]

window restoration is very labor intensive and pricing reflects the labor and expertise of the craftsperson...you CAN do this work yourself but it may take you considerably longer if you cannot devote good chunks of time to the endeavor...doing it yourself gives you bragging rights, teaches you patience and engenders confidence...

check out photos of windows/doors/trim online...i'm sure you'll find ones where the sash/door is stained and the trim painted...it's a personal thing, esthetics...there are stains, then there are stains...there are penetrating stains that penetrate into the fibers...there are stains that sit atop the wood not unlike paint...if you scrape and sand and there are bits of stubborn paint left, the stain (non-penetrating) we use will cover it...

we use oil paints and stains...latex products tend to stick forever and a day and then another week...

our tried and true method is to scrape and sand, apply blopentine (50/50 blend of boiled linseed oil/turpentine), oil primer and oil finish paint...for staining--blop, stain and clear finish...

http://www.bing.com/images/search?q=sta ... ORM=IQFRBA

http://www.bing.com/images/search?q=sta ... &sp=-1&sk=

hope that helps....
..jade

[CS in Low Hud]

I did our place. It took about ten years. The wood had originally been shellacked, so it stripped well (though of course it was still time consuming).
Here's what it looked like when we bought the place:

And what it looks like now:


*updated to fix images

Chris

[Gothichome]

KMarisa, this my first attempt at replicating the original stain sashes. They were painted green, I sanded most of the paint off, had the paint store scan and colour match (as best they could) a little bit of the original stain. I then painted the sash and applied a couple coats of amber shellac. The window box has been stripped, stained and two coats of the Amber shellac.

IMG_0221.JPG (1.13 MiB) Viewed 657 times

Under some natural light conditions you don''t notice the slight colour. With the room light on it shows a bit more. I am pretty happy with the resaults. I think a casual glances at the windows would be hard pressed to notice the colour difference with all the other Ooooooo factors in the room.

[Kmarissa]

Gothichome, that is just stunning.

[Gothichome]

Thanks, not at the skill level of many of the pros here in the district, but reasonably close. I Will use the same technique for the rest of the windows.

[Sinoed]

Think carefully about how much time you plan to devote to stripping then plan to spend at least three times more than your worst estimate. I just finished stripping one of my living room windows (16 panes) so I could stain it and it took absolutely forever. It's definitely a labour of love. I had to use dental pics to scape the tiny corners and still couldn't get every bit of white paint out. I ended up mixing up some oil based paint close to my stain color and had to artfully apply touch ups before staining. It looks gorgeous but I'd think twice about using stain for things like windows with a lot of corners to deal with.

[Al F. Furnituremaker]

CS in Low Hud and Gothichome; Great work!

[Gothichome]

Thanks Al.