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| Damn this woman and her perfect set of French Provincial doors! |
So, we have this house. Built in 1928, and only owned by three family's, the Architect, the Quaker Couple and Husband and I.
When you buy a house, you never want to make the mistake of having owned for that long of time by old people. Face it, we get older and most people defer repairs, they may get sloppy with paint, etc.
Face it, when you are on the downward side of the great bell curve of life, those cataract lensed eyes miss the detail. What you see as a small crack is a big crack twenty years later if you don't fix the cause of the crack. Sure you can spackle and paint it, but if the cause isn't addressed, eventually that crack is coming back.
The house we have has a traditional Colonial Revival six panel door, which has no windows. It's just a BIG door.
And over the years layer upon layer of cream, then white paint has been painted over the last layer until the paint hid all the details of the moldings, and it began to "check".
What is checking?
Have you ever looked as something that been outside and the paint is cracking in squares? That's checking. And checking happens for a couple reasons. The first is that there are so many layers of paint expanding and contracting over the years that each layer is moving at a different rate. The other thing is that there are so many layers that the actual weight of the paint begins to pull on it as well.
And the previous owner's solution? More latex paint and they glopped it on top of the lead white paint.
So Cookie tried to strip the lead painted mess a couple years ago and it was such a miserable job, and the weather didn't cooperate, and then other things got in the way and it just stayed half door.
And Cookie had gotten to the point where he said to the husband, let's just get a new, accurate for the house door made out of wood. No fiberglas knockoffs that "sparkle" from the imitation lead glass Victoriana knockoff. But something decent.
The husband felt that we could get the door stripped.
Today, he gave it a whirl. And after about an hour, he signaled surrender.
There is a good quarter inch of led and the wood underneath is just pine. So Cookie is going shopping. Bother.
I have done more than my fair share of paint removal over the years - "Something wrong with stripping!?" - and it is tedious; although I did once reveal a magnificent set of hand-painted glazed tiles on a salvaged fireplace, under layers of pink(!) paint, which was rewarding. I am very glad that these days we just rent. It's someone else's problem now. Jx
ReplyDeleteBoth my main entrance door & kitchen door are on the front of the house. Both doors came with wooden storm doors that are original. That means there are removable screens & storms for both. A few years ago I spent the summer stripping those storm doors (that BOTH sides) as well as the frames for the screens & storms AND the windows around the main door AND the actual doors. It was a lot of work. Not sure how many layers of paint I took off (house built in 1950) but you surely have more layers than I. (And yes, I mean that in all ways.) I must admit the work came out great & I'm glad I did it.
ReplyDeleteThe husband removed about half a paper grocery bag (uncrushed) of lead and latex paint. When weighed, it came to four pounds. The door is just about 50% stripped on just the exterior side.
ReplyDeleteand oh, he worked on one panel yesterday, about 6"x6". This is why I think a new door is best.
DeleteI realize that I am chiming in late and not to be the voice of doom and gloom but it might be best to deal with the scraping or hire someone else to do it. Our home was built in 1936 (Center hall Colonial) and we still had the original storm and entry doors. We suffered under layers of paint and no longer had the perfect weather-proof seal. We opted to replace both with high-quality, new doors rather than investing in the renovations required by the existing doors. It's a very long and tedious story but suffice to say that we have had two sets of replacement doors (which equates to five years, two separate installers and two separate manufacturers) and we still don't have a door that can reliably be locked from the outside or easily locked from the inside. The trouble seems to be that once you remove the original hardware (doors) the entire entry frame (the big hole left when doors and sidelights are removed) begins to shift. It causes seasonal misalignment of the spring bolt, dead bolt and box. We have found that removing the strike plate allows enough wiggle room until the highest humidity of summer sets in. Then, we just go out the backdoor. Learn from the mistakes of others.
ReplyDelete