We had dinner, packed the wee ones off to bed, turned up the volume on Part I of the season finale of Top Chef so we could hear it in the outside hall, and started off. Here's where we are after the first coat of stripper has been applied and scraped:
Yes, we are insane and decided to do three at a time, since that's what will fit in our hallway. Hey, we have twelve to do, and this is the only week we can spread out like this, so we're taking advantage of it! If we can get these three done, we'll consider it a good week at the dorm. Then, we have to figure out how we can continue with project door restore when we no longer can occupy entire hallways.....
If you are wondering what doors these are, - the two that are less-stripped (more paint) are 1) Varro's room to the hallway and 2) Varro's room to Nelly's room. The last picture shows one of the library doors, which is 7 feet tall and super heavy, and also apparently much less painted, because that one is stripping beautifully!
Also, for those of you who are looking for the right tools, these became my new best friends last night: the two edge paint scraper (use cautiously, but it works like magic), and the plastic butter knife. Yep, the last works like a charm on loose paint in the curvy bits of trim, and doubles to remove all the junk that accumulates on your magical two-edge paint scraper! This project moved light-years faster when we started to arrive at the right tools. A week and a half ago, we started Varro's room using two 1.5 inch plastic putty knives. After wearing out 4 of those in one weekend and making little progress, we decided a new strategy was needed. Tim did yesterday's house project with two metal putty knives, and he brought those home to work on the doors. I tried out the two-edge, and it conveys a clear advantage over even the metal putty knives, as long as you don't get over-enthusiastic and start scraping off door! (I did put a slight scrape in one of the doors, so word to the wise.....)
The last thing we need to find is an easier way to attack the curvy bits, so we're looking into that. Stay posted.
Oh, and Nelly and I have been reading the BFG. Having analyzed the story thus far, she reported last night that she knows two important things:
1) Dreams come from your heart.
2) You should blow good dreams from your heart at your friends.
Seven feet, four inches! And, having hauled them from house to car to car to basement to second floor hallway, yes, weighty.
ReplyDeleteI don't know how much more stripping you have to do beyond the one room, but you might try stainless steel scrubbies--they really helped us on curved bits of wood stripping. We also found a heat gun to be invaluable.
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