Friday, June 13, 2014

one coat of paint

Few people realize the damage one coat of paint can do.  "The wood looks so old."  "Dirty." "It'll brighten the place up."  It'll help with resale."  This single coat of latex has been the cause of much angst.  And stripping it hasn't even begun yet.  See how all the lovely wood work blends into blahness in these before pictures?  Even the antique colonial revival fixture has been painted white!


This room is our main parlor, just off of the original entry hall.  It's the last room that's cut up (with a large closet and bathroom), although we won't be tackling that demo until we're ready to build the master bathroom above it.  For now though, we sold off our Art Deco living room set, which gave us access to the bay window.  Once again, our house rewarded us with a few lovely surprises.
cute, but too low for bad backs...
We haven't had room to look back here with all the furniture, so the first thing I did was whip out the heat gun.


Yatta!  More cherry (I think, I'm pretty sure, sorta?)!  No primer, just one damn coat of paint that will make stripping awful since I can't use a heat gun (too much chance of scorching the wood).  Also...


Ample evidence that there was a built-in bench wrapping around the bay.  Although cool, this is unlikely to be rebuilt because honestly, they don't tend to be that comfortable, and this is (and will remain) the tv room.  Also cool is that we still have the rods for portieres (visible in the first three pictures).  I can actually imagine this having been a Turkish corner with the beautiful painted ceilings (more about that here), portieres and built-ins.  Also, fretwork - we only recently looked closely at the uppermost piece of jamb around the arch, and it shows clear evidence of patched nail holes. Beyond exciting, especially since it prompted us to look at the other bay, which shows the same evidence of fretwork.  So yeah, terribly exciting, and yet sooooo utterly depressing...

12 comments:

  1. The previous owner of our house had everything spray painted flat white to hide all the problems. Luckily there were multiple coats of paint so using the heat gun worked with any problems.

    Love that wood.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. I feel you on the flat paint, an upstairs bedroom here has flat bright pink paint I can actually scrub off with soap and water. Nothing worse, but at least I don't have a house full of it lol...

      Delete
  2. Replies
    1. I love it, the four huge windows make the space - but it'll be nice to finally start working on the woodwork.

      Delete
  3. Hey, I had great luck with SoyGel for stripping. It works best on latex paint and paint that has varnish underneath, but one door that was originally painted was more troublesome. You can see my results here. http://chadscrookedhouse.wordpress.com/2014/03/02/strip-act/

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. I've heard good things about soygel, but I'm trying to avoid using chemical strippers in this instance. Chances are the woodwork is dyed, and I'd like to preserve that as much as possible, and not risk lifting it or making it blotchy.

      Delete
  4. I hear you on the pain in the a$$ factor of one coat of paint. Have dealt with that on furniture, but not in the house. Our house has had painted woodwork from the beginning, and each owner seems to have put on a fresh coat of paint ... to the point where grooves in some moldings were completely filled in with paint.

    You sure you can't do a majority of the job with the heat gun? I stripped a single layer of paint off my hoosier with the heat gun and didn't damage the original finish underneath. It was a matter of gently warming the paint and peeling it away. I am thinking that this may work at least for your flat surfaces.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. It seems to work on the flat surfaces ok, but it's been difficult to get the scraper under the paint consistently - I think I'm going to break out ALL my scrapers and see which one works best, I'm more concerned with all the trim though, very, very little is flat in this room. I may try the Peel Away for architectural woodwork (6 or 7 I think), we'll see.

      Delete
  5. Well on the positive side you can measure and know exactly what size fretwork you need on you travels. This would make a nice Turkish corner, in fact if this room will be a TV room creating something exotic there might keep some of the reflective light out. I have a similar square box bay on the Nagele-Merz house. Throw a plant on a stand, drape some exotic looking fabric on the windows for drapes and your done. As for the woodwork try to determine if its been shellaced. If you use some chemicals it can create a haze on the wood that is difficult to remove. I never determine what a room is going to be, I just let it evolve, more fun that way.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Ahhh, good point on the haze - I have enough stray pieces of trim that I should be able to test out whatever I try on those. Decorating wise, this house has a pretty clear idea what it wants, I'm just here to fix things and move furniture around...

      Delete
  6. I caught myself nodding in agreement and sympathy to your line, "terribly exciting, and yet sooooo utterly depressing." I know that feeling well - when I discovered the details of the paneling that had been removed throughout the 1st floor, when I confirmed what the original built-in used to be like - before it was removed. Great blog and amazing work you are doing. Keep it up!

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. At least you can be my inspiration that it can be done! The work you've done is extraordinary - although I'm already jealous of your beautiful (FLAT!) woodwork, and I've not even finished stripping one room yet.... Damn ornate Victorians....

      Delete

I am human and I need to be loved...