Hello All, I'm a newbie to this group and to home repair. I was hoping to get help on two issues:alt.home.repair sent me here...
- I am "restoring" a 1927 Tudor which so far has involved hundreds of hours stripping (heat gun and chemical) windows and repainting, as well as removing carpet, thousands of nails, 7 layers of paint on a beautiful staircase that awaits staining and sealing. My problem today is in one room. The windows, baseboards, doors and trim are all wood (about 5 inches wide)and have been painted with three layers of paint. The top layer is maybe latex? How do you tell? Anyway, some of the top layer is pealing and chipping, I assume from bad prep. The two layers underneath look smooth and solid (professionally done, probably). I want to repaint everything white, but the prospect of continuing to strip and sand till my wife divorces me is not the most desirable one, especially since we're thinking of trying to have a baby (lead paint issues). Anyway, does anyone have advise on this project? I was hoping to only remove the top layer of paint, or even sand it with 100, then
- On a second note, the living and dining room has beautiful mahogany built in bookcases and a gigantic mantle covering an entire wall, and the baseboards, doors and mantle are all unpainted mahogany - thank God. They don't look bad, except for a few spots on the baseboards and on the window sills (where the prior windows failed and leaked-now fixed). I was hoping to "refresh" the look of all the wood with a layer of poly or wax or varnish or something, but I don't have the first clue how to begin. The finish is still mostly intact, but is not shiny anymore. We're having the oak floors professionally redone - again, divorce is the likely alternative, so I want everything to look good, not just the floors. And should I do the stripping/painting, etc before or after the floors are redone.
Any help or suggestions or references on my projects would be greatly appreciated. Thanks, David