House in Progress Diary

I keep reading everyone's blogs that they use either a heat gun or SPR and then denatured alchohol. I have been adding an extra (and messy) step of using stipper in between. Now I hear that the denatured alchohol will remove the paint residue- this is very good news!

at least it was nice stripping weather last weekend :)

I've tried this myself and I have found that the shellac makes the paint come off much easier. The heat sorta makes it "boil" and if you get it at the right time all the paint comes off in a mass as the shellac liquifies and releases. The only problem is the hot sticky shellac sticks to the scraper! I have a feeling the alcohol doesn't so much remove the paint as it dissolves the shellac (alcohol is the solvent for shellac) thus releasing the paint left after the heat treatment. Work on my house has pretty much been on hold due to a garden I am making, but my experience with paint thus far has been that stripping painted over shellac is MUCH easier than attempting the same with paint directly on wood. In fact I believe the reason a lot of the paint on the interior woodwork in the house is peeling is due to the shellac. Shellac can have wax(unless it is specially dewaxed) in it and this can cause other finishes to not stick as well.

Whatcha use to rub on the denatured alcohol?
Rob was using an old sock...but those don't last long. I tried to get him to use really fine steel wool, but that wasn't working so great either.

Old socks, old t-shirts, etc are what I use myself, seem to work alright. I keep the alcohol in an old Thai or indian plastic take out container and dip the sock in and squeeze the alcohol through it several times every so often to get the shellac out.

The 3m abrasive pads are better than steel wool. They last longer, and they don't fall apart. They have coarse and fine ones. Does the shellac look opaque when you strip the paint. Ours seems like a solid shellac, maybe that's what they used as a primer back then.

I use a heat gun, myself.

Now, I have a question: does anybody know where I can get 1" hex unglazed floor tile on a mesh grid with the nice tight grout spacing that was on the original floor? All the suppliers I've seen so far have huge (3/32" +- 1/32), modern grout lines. The old floor had about 1/32" lines.

Love the blog. I can't believe you have the time to do all this work and still blog about it.

I LOVE your site. I have learned so much. You inspired me to track my own remodelling project. I so do NOT want to muddle. Just bring a beauty to life.
We are new to the blog neighborhood so come on down for a big Texas HOWDY!
thanks again for the good teaching!

http://themccord6.blogspot.com/

Hello again,
I have a question for you both. Your post about trim got me thinking about resuming the stripping of my own trim again as soon as some other things are done. I notice you took it all off to strip it. Did you try stripping it in place? The reason I ask is I have one board off (and it has been off for months), from the master BR to be, and it was quite a pain to remove, going behind the radiator as it did, and due to the floorboards holding it against the wall. The lowest row of nails was thus very hard to access to cut. To remove the board all nails had to be cut after prying and then the board lifted from the channel formed between the wall and the hardwood floor. Thus, I've considered stripping those boards in place and wanted to know if you had any experiences to share using that approach.

We just bought a house and want to strip the moldings with the SPR. Did I read that you finished all the trim on the second floor in just 10 hours? AMAZING! Also, about how long does it take to strip one window completely with all the little nooks and crannies?