Cool!

I know we’ve been making progress, but today I actually felt like we were getting a little bit closer to being done with the living room.  My Dad came down to help us this afternoon.  Jenny had to work for most of the day (her employer let everyone out early, though, so she got home at around 15:00).  I took today off from work.  I’m starting to feel a little bit better, so I took Jenny to work this morning.  After I dropped her off, I grabbed breakfast, then stopped by Ace on the way home.  I had made a decision to try the nasty stripper stuff, as I seemed to be getting nowhere fast with the CitrusStrip.  I picked up some of that (Stripeeze), some TSP, a can of orange shellac, some denatured alcohol (thins shellac, amongst other uses), and a few brushes.  I was ready to go. 

I got started as soon as I got home.  I had a little bit of heat gun stripping left to do on the big front window.  Part of my goal for this weekend is to get that window back in place.  I had originally planned to do that today, but being sick yesterday severely impacted my ability to do work yesterday, and slowed me down a lot today.

As I was stripping with the heat gun, I came to the realization that we can’t do the paint around the stained glass window transom right now.  That almost has to come out for us to do it right, and we can’t take that time right now.  I also have a feeling that we’re going to need someone to help restoring it when we try to start working on it, and I don’t want to get into that right now.  So, after consulting with Jenny, I decided to strip the area around the transom, but not the transom itself.  While doing that, I discovered some more moulding that could be removed for easier stripping outside, so I did that.  Doing that also made it easier to finish what I was doing with the heat gun, so it was a win-win situation. 

I took the moulding that I had removed outside, and put some of the new nasty stripper on it.  It turns out that it isn’t really all that nasty (I had a respirator on and gloves and everything, though, so maybe it was worse than it seemed).  I went back inside and finished-up the heat gun stripping.  At around this same time, my Dad arrived.  I put him to work sanding the stop moulding for the front window, and then the sash itself.  He got to use the new Fein MultiMaster, which worked great.  We also put his Craftsman random-orbital to good use, as the paper for that sander is a lot less expensive.  The Craftsman did all the flat stuff, and the Fein was pressed into duty on the curvy bits.  All of this wood had been stripped with the CitrusStrip stuff, so there was a lot of clean-up necessary.  That killed a few sheets of sandpaper for both tools, which sucked, but they really made the job go fast.  If we had to hand-sand all of this stuff, we’d still be sanding on Monday.

Jenny arrived shortly after my Dad, and she ate some late lunch and got to work with the other heat gun stripping more baseboard. 

As soon as I was finished with my heat gun stripping, I tried the moulding that I had put the stripper on less than an hour prior.  Holy cow–everything came off in one stroke over most of the moulding!  This stuff worked great!  I put a touch-up second coat in a few places on that moulding, and I took some more inside to try on the window trim.  All I can say is, “Wow!”  This stuff worked wonders on that trim.  Cleaning it off is messy, but much easier (and less messy, if that is possible) than the CitrusStrip.  I also didn’t need more than one coat to remove the old finish that didn’t come off with the heat gun, so that was extra-cool.  It worked so quickly that I was able to start finish sanding with the random-orbital (I start with 60 grit to clean-up, then move to 100, then 220 is my finish grit).  I can do all of the flat parts with the random-orbital, so I hit all of those on the big window trim with 60.  I was just finishing up that while my dad finished-up with the 220 on the sash.  It was ready for its finish!  Holy cow!  I’ve been waiting for almost a year to try this!

There was a ton of dust on the sash.  We decided to carry it outside and use the compressor to give it a quick clean-off.  Then it was back inside and a rub-down with a tack cloth.  And then…

My Dad had the honors of the first brush strokes.  I decided to use amber shellac.  It’s a historic finish, and is likely one of the components of the original finish on this woodwork (it appears to have been a shellac-varnish blend, which I’ve read was pretty popular).  I decided on the straight shellac because it is easy to apply and really easy to repair (just put on more!).  The trim in our home is some variety of pine, and it is pretty soft.  It has been dinged, and will certainly be dinged in the future–this just makes it that much easier to repair.  It also looks pretty darn good on pine. 

My Dad had to leave after the first coat, so we cleaned-up, put the plastic back down over the open window area, and he went off on his way.  I waited a bit, gave the sash and stop moulding a quick sand, and applied a second coat.  The second coat makes it look even better.  I think I’ll do a third coat to see how it looks, and will consider a fourth coat.  I don’t want to have a too-thick film, but the additional coats really add depth to the finish. 

It looks good.  I’m happy.  Jenny is happy.  We have lots more to do, but this proves to me that we can do it, and that it will look pretty good when we’re done.  I’m excited.  More pictures from today are here.

jonathan