victorian doors

[angrybird]

I have spent hours scraping ,stripping and sanding the upstairs doors after reading on here not to have them dipped and stripped,
Now what? i still have odd bits of paint I can't quite remove,so im thinking if I waxed the doors they might look messy but after all the hard work I really dont want to paint them,
any ideas please?

After renovating the house for the last eight months does one ever stop banging their heads on the door openings ? I try to remember to duck but then I turn around and bang my head going back the other way!!! im 5'10 Mr Angry is 6'2 and my 16 year old son is 6'3 so when we eventually move in I think we are going to get quite a few bruised foreheads :lol:

 

[LadyArowana]

Tall people might like one of these, keep a selection on a hatstand for visitors, lots of colour choices.

http://www.thesafetysupplycompany.co.uk/c/203028/1/all-hard-hats.html

Not sure I have any advice about the doors, maybe revisit the stubborn patches and have another go... and yes I do realize that is not a helpful suggestion.

 

[JoceAndChris]

Oh, awful work. I've done it, lots and lots, I sympathise. I'm afraid there's only one way and that's to apply the Nitromors to a few patches every day until you're happy. Let it soak well in before you go back with the scraper and the rags, I seem to remember a soak for 5 mins, a reapplication, a soak for 20. Repeat dozens of times. It takes months and months. Wax will cover tiny splodges of paint OK but you don't want them too big. Fine grade sandpaper can help you too, but careful with that, you don't want to lose all the patina.

Oil then wax will bring out a lovely rich colour when you're ready.

And you will remember about the low heights eventually.

 

[angrybird]

:lol: :lol: :lol: maybe i could cover the hard hat with a victoria bonnet
I kind of knew i'd have to keep scraping but thought there might be a magic cure
I was thinking of putting a carved wooden duck above each doorway is this stating the obvious :lol:

 

[JoceAndChris]

Poor angrybird, the magic cure is to love paint but if you've your heart set on golden mellow antique pine then I'm afraid it's picky scrapy picky pick until it's all gone. A real labour of love.

Ducks above the door :lol:

 

[LadyArowana]

Ducks above the door :lol:

This person does a mallard, and also a common loon......

http://www.etsy.com/listing/81550441/mallard-duck-24x12-chainsaw-carved

 

[JoceAndChris]

Sweet!

 

[Lime]

After renovating the house for the last eight months does one ever stop banging their heads on the door openings ?

No.
A piece of string or cloth dangled over the door opening will make you remember to duck more often.

I took over 3 months to clean (full time) the paint and varnish off my stair banisters, rails, spindles etc.
I used over 200 stanley blades and 20 litres of methylated spirits to name just a few items.

For the last 18 years every time I use the stairs I notice how nice they look.
Was it worth all that work?
Even when I was doing the stripping I knew it was.
every day revealed yet more enchanting and varied wood grain.

 

[billybuntus]

The only thing I've ever hand stripped is our staircase.

I've dipped over a 100 doors and had no problem with any of them. The designed is wedged mortice and tenon so movement is minimal?

I don't understand what all the fuss is about with people being scared of dipping. I obviously wouldn't dip furniture but doors?

Actually I tell a lie. I have had a number of problems with dipped doors and that when some half wit has tried in the past to strip the door with a heatgun and has blackened the majority of the timber then painted back over it

 

[plasticpigeon]

My mum had all her doors dipped. They seemed ok. I think maybe one panel cracked but it may have been cracked before. I think some dippers leave the items in too long and then they go furry, and panels warp badly, so that isn't good, but I would rather dip things as I don't want to be cleaning up lead paint dust all the time. I think doing up old houses is hard work at the best of times, so any acceptable easy option I would be inclined to take.

 

[eezageeza]

What sort of stripper are you using angrybird? I've found Homestrip very good in the past. You can leave it on for 24 hours, covered with clingfilm, then scrape it - and the paint - off, then go over it with a wet stainless steel pan scourer. I've always managed to get every scrap of paint off. The secret seems to be the pan scourer - it has to be a stainless steel one, but they're dead cheap from supermarkets or homeware stores.

 

[tycarregydwr]

Sorry to be clueless, but why is dipping doors bad? Does it damage them? Before we moved out to the sticks we lived around the corner from a reclaimation yard who specialised in mostly doors and fireplaces, and they dip a lot of them, the ones I looked at seemed fine. After the sheer hell of trying to strip moulding by hand, I have to be honest and say I'd probably never attempt handstripping a door...

 

[billybuntus]

Sorry to be clueless, but why is dipping doors bad? Does it damage them? Before we moved out to the sticks we lived around the corner from a reclaimation yard who specialised in mostly doors and fireplaces, and they dip a lot of them, the ones I looked at seemed fine. After the sheer hell of trying to strip moulding by hand, I have to be honest and say I'd probably never attempt handstripping a door...

I gather some people have had doors dipped that have turned out badly either due to an inexperienced stripping firm or because there door was rubbish to start off with so disappointment will always follow.

 

[dandrew]

As BillyBuntus said, paneled doors use a wedged mortise and tenon for the joinery, which is plenty strong enough to hold it together long after the 'horse sauce' animal glue has failed. Some people cite this as the reason not to dip strip doors, but the glue, which is dissolved by caustic strippers, is unlikely to be holding the door together anyway, it's the joinery that's important.

Dip stripping removes all the paint finishes, stopping (putty used to fill holes, dead knots etc) and exposes the bare wood, which most often is deal (pine) that was not considered a 'show' wood by our forefathers. The resulting appearance is often not what the owner was expecting, when really it was entirely predictable, based on knowledge of how doors were made. Perhaps this is why people object to dip stripping. The surface of the wood can be left 'furry' by caustic strippers, particularly in doors that faced the sun, and further scraping/sanding is necessary to get a good finish.

Personally I would only strip a door if the joinery detail was obscured by so much paint that it was lost AND you were going to repaint it. Our ancestors only used high-class woods (oak, walnut, mahogany) for show, and if you want to strip pine doors for show you must expect the wood to have a rather 'rustic' appearance.

David

 

[tycarregydwr]

Thank you, that makes sense. I didn't realize that people dip-stripped doors expecting anything other than a rustic look, hence my confusion. Personally I like the slightly bashed-up stripped pine look as I feel it complements my eclectic (chaotic, shambolic?) decorating and housekeeping :lol:

 

[JoceAndChris]

Personally I think dipping is a really awful thing to do to your elderly wood. Our house featured quite a number of dipped shutters, as well as hand stripped benches and sills. The wood looked awful - dry, furry, orangey to slightly white. OK that would have been improved by an oil then wax finish. But it isn't remotely authentic or good looking for a Georgisn home and I couldn't wait to paint over again.

In certain cases paint is listed - I know of a pub in Stamford which is characterised by centuries of paint, the CO advised against any stripping and I'm very glad that's been respected as it's so atmospheric.

Please at least make a record before you strip doors, sand back gently and photograph the colour schemes as I think the future owners have a right to know!

I regret the hand stripping I did here, it was different in London where I was stripping 1980s joinery to create a particular mood. Here it happened because I felt the mouldings had become a bit obscured by paint, and I wanted to create crisper lines with the new paintwork. I now think that's fair enough if it's a detailed cornice but if it's a four panelled door it's nicer to see the centuries of glooped paint.


But, you can find interesting finishes if you strip carefully by hand, I'm currently gently picking the 20th c white off a door in order to reveal a very well done 19th C piece of wood graining. This is how all 13 hallway doors were presented and I think it's interesting to return one to that to help tell the story of the house, particularly as wood graining is virtually a lost art.

And when it comes to the full scale stripping of beams awful crimes against history have taken place, the irreversible destruction of delicate patterns from centuries ago. So please go carefully down any stripping routes!

 

[Zebra]

it complements my eclectic (chaotic, shambolic?) decorating and housekeeping :lol:

I like your style!