What would you do with this lovely old door?

[Feltwell]

Not my decoration - the previous owners. The wallpaper I would never have chosen, but it is growing on me - just as well as it's top to bottom on our stairwells, 3 floors with high ceilings, a lot of it accessible only if I get a scaffold built! The green paint is nice but makes the room (my office in attic / refuge from kids / junk room!) rather dark, so it may have to go.

I think the door looks fine, you're right there is still some paint in the joints between the planks, you can also see some sort of filler used over where the nails have been punched down.

Dip stripping does seem to evoke strong reactions, people either saying "it's great" or "avoid at all costs". I've tried it in the past with fairly poor results, but all the doors in this house have been dipped I believe (all are Victorian 4 panel except for the "low status" back attic room door in the pictures above) and are all fine. Some reckon that having the tank that the item is dipped in heated gives much better results, some stripping companies do this, some don't. I've seen furniture that looks great after dipping, neutralising with vinegar and then waxing - and I've seen furniture that looks very grey after dipping with failed joints where the animal glue originally used in them has been destroyed.

I would have thought that a basic planked door like yours that is nailed together would survive dipping just fine, I would be more worried that a panelled door (esp cupboard doors) would suffer from warping and joints failing after being dipped. If you're going to start somewhere it's probably a good choice - you can paint it again afterwards if the worst comes to the worst, as I have done once before!

Ultimately personal choice though, and if the fact that it would definitely have been painted originally bothers you or not. I'm kind of the opinion that if the paint finish is nice and just looks old then leave it, if it's been clogged to death with many layers of grotty paint, fluff and the obligatory dog hairs and just looks tatty then do what you want to do.

 

[Penners]

you can also see some sort of filler used over where the nails have been punched down.

It's probably putty.

Yes, caustic dipping does provoke strong reactions. I am very much in the "anti" camp, because of the risks involved. Dipping can give a satisfactory result, if it's done by people who are well experienced in it, and who know just how much immersion in what type of caustic the item can stand.

The problem is that you never know how successful it will be until the job (and perhaps the damage) is done. And once it's done, there's no undoing it.

In my (limited) experience, there are fewer successful outcomes than there are disasters. And badly done, dipping can make the wood dry and brittle, risking cracking - particularly of thinner sections like the fielded panels in panelled doors. It can also destroy adhesives - particularly early materials like fish glue (often used in Victorian panelled doors). And it can leave softwoods with a rather unpleasant grey colour.

So you pays yer money and takes yer risk.

However, I agree with Feltwell that a chunky ledge-and-brace planked door is probably at the lower end of the risk spectrum.

 

[Nigel Watts]

The best example I know of the keep-splashing-on-the-dulux-no-matter-how-battered-it-looks school of thought is Berry Bros's shopfront in St James's Street. This is the best picture I could find from a quick Google, but it doesn't really do justice to the sheer excentricity of it :

http://www.flickr.com/photos/normko/2843132687/

Definitely worth a look if you are in that part of London, even if your budget doesnt stretch to a case of Romanee-Conti or Chateau Petrus

 

[JoceAndChris]

Definitely worth a look if you are in that part of London, even if your budget doesnt stretch to a case of Romanee-Conti or Chateau Petrus

mmmm I might have to revise my anti-gloop stance. Tell you what, a couple bottles Chateau Petrus I'll come round and do your curtains for free.

Won't guarantee straight seams though.

 

[Penners]

Tell you what, a couple bottles Chateau Petrus I'll come round and do your curtains for free.

Good grief, woman - have you no shame? Putting yourself about for a couple of bottles of plonk?

 

[JoceAndChris]

Good grief, woman - have you no shame? Putting yourself about for a couple of bottles of plonk?

Gosh I am going to have to revise my fee. 3 bottles of the Petrus, a pound of grapes and I'll do anything. :wink:

 

[Gareth Hughes]

I have to say (from experience, back in a more rose-tinted life) that the 2001 does not taste £828 better than a bottle of Tesco's eau de chat

 

[Lime]

The test for good revived woodwork is do your guests keep touching the wood and asking "did you do this?" IME.
While Feltwell's door is much better than the painted variety that I often see, I think the finish can get tiring to the eye if done over a larger area.
I notice the smear over the grain before I notice the grain.
One of the joys of old pine is that it always looks different from new even when cleaned down to the wood...not stripped.
Any stripping of any sort tends to dissolve the paint near the wood surface and push some remnant of it into the wood surface.
Too little heat from a heat gun can do the same thing as the paint is rubbed into the grain rather than lifted off and removed.
However it is detail that takes the time and that is what others notice.. if they really bother to look.
While I may begrudge spending a week or two cleaning the surface of an old door I spend years admiring it after.

 

[JoceAndChris]

I have to say (from experience, back in a more rose-tinted life) that the 2001 does not taste £828 better than a bottle of Tesco's eau de chat

Oh do tell us more! I thought you had spent your life in dusty old libraries poring over diagrams of the internal structures of windmills. Now you hint darkly at Roman style feasts where you scoffed at £1000 bottles of wine??

:shock:

 

[Penners]

Would that be 'scoffed' or 'quaffed'?