Why they gotta do that?

My weekend project was to make some significant progress on the removal of paint from the trim in the kids' rooms.  Thanks to the cheerful help of our dear friends, Tom and Melissa, much progress was made.    Melissa pitched in on the tedious (but made so much better with friendly chatting) project of paint removal, and Tom tackled the 140 years of dirt in the basement with Tim (who was much encumbered by a cranky young son).  Thanks so much, T&M!  Also, a shout out to Emily, who braved the dungeonous basement on Sunday for several hours, wielding her fearsome shop-vac weapon in the effort to vanquish the aforementioned 140 years of dirt. 

We are truly blessed by the kindness of our friends!

So, on to project DEPAINT: 

After paint paint paint of stripper in the early morning, we had this:

 and after a few hours, and then some hours of scrape scrape, wipe wipe, scrape scrape, we had:

It's not much, but its enough to discover that underneath all of that dingy white paint is some beautiful, bright finished pine.  Which gets me to - WHY?   Whatever would possess one to paint over such beautiful wood?  I suppose I can thank the same people who have provided us with the lovely "dusty rose" paint job in the master bedroom....

Argh.

But, onward.   Now we've discovered/realized a few important things:

1)  The wood trim underneath is in good shape and is definitely worth preserving. 
2)  The house was built in 1878, so there is a high likelihood that some of this is lead-based paint. 
3)  Sanding will be required, which will cause lead-dust to permeate the house if the area isn't sealed off. 
4)  It will take us, liberally estimating, roughly forever and an army to uncover said beautiful woodwork.
5)  We have four months to make these two rooms at least charming and liveable for the small ones.  Translated loosely, that means no lead paint and some floors would be most excellent, neither of which are the case in these rooms, currently.  Well, I guess if you are okay with having Excalibur-sized splinters in your feet regularly, these floors would be fine....

Hence, tomorrow and Thursday, Tim's meeting contractors at the house who are likely to be eminently more qualified to do such things (not to mention that they will have the miraculous equipment necessary to pulverize the offending paint and remove it safely without dispersing dust everywhere).  We'll see if we can get a quote to un-paint the trim in the bedrooms, bathroom and office that will not break our bank, but will allow us to do this so that we can get on with all of the rest of the 5000 projects that we need to tackle before our July deadline!  Keep your fingers crossed for us.