Bangor Foursquare circa 1930

In the spirit of renewing our house with our much-anticipated floor refinishing later this week, here is a photo of the Bangor Foursquare at 10 years old. We received this photo from the Bangor Historical Society, which was part of their 1930's assessors' collection. As you can tell, the house seems to have been originally something other than just white - perhaps blue or gray (I often dream about getting the house repainted so this may offer some inspiration). The hand-railing on the front stairs seems to have been added later but our near-falling-down garage in the back seems to have been there for quite some time. However, other than the trellises on the right side of the house, everything else seems to be as it is now, almost 80 years later (including the asbestos-tiled roof that we still have and is still in excellent shape -- eat your heart out).

I'll take some before pictures of the upstairs floors this week after we move all the furniture out. Don Dickel Floors (the great people who refinished our beautiful floors downstairs) is coming on Thursday morning before we leave for Disneyworld so all of it has to be moved elsewhere...fun, fun, fun.

3rd time's a charm...mostly

After calming down considerably from yesterday's Peony Tragedy 2009 (thanks for the thoughtful words, Karen Anne), I attempted to remove the last of the gunk from the bottom newel post today. There are still some lingering places that are more black than brown so I'm not sure how to deal with that but for now I need to be done as Thom has been feeling pretty sick from the fumes of the mineral spirits I've had to use to clean up the Peel Away 6. I wonder if there is a way to even out the color with a stain although I suppose this would just make the existing dark spots even darker...?

Nothing else going on this weekend except for maybe a bit more research on bathroom reno. I'm counting the days to getting the floors done!

I also think that my now successful use of Peel Away has prompted me to use it on our front porch floor and steps - there must be at least 10 layers of paint out there and you can tell it. That might be a July or August weekend project.

Are you f*cking kidding me?!?

As I reported last year, someone came and stole my peonies before I could even take a picture of them. They finally bloomed yesterday and I thought I'd go enjoy them (now that the rain stopped for 5 minutes) only to find that someone has AGAIN stolen several of them (see above stem with missing flower). Mother f&cking, son of b%tch, a$$hole losers. I seriously feel like sitting outside with a bat and just waiting for them to come by again. I should at least feel happy that I got a picture of them this year - who knows, they may all be gone by tomorrow. I will quote myself from a year ago and repeat, "Mean people suck."

Okay, I admit it: I was wrong

After being angry and frustrated last night regarding the issues with my Peel Away debacle, I spent some time on the Internet seeing that I seemed to be the only person in the universe with this problem. This led me to believe that the rest of the universe was probably right and I was most likely wrong. I reapplied the goo triple thick this time and used some plastic wrap. It all came off like a dream today when I got home. So, yes, user error. There are a few spots that I need to yet redo (including the bottom newel post that I did yesterday improperly) but I am happy with progress thus far. I was unhappy to see that I got some on the spindles but I know I'll need to repaint these anyway once the floors are done. All in all, then, Peel Away - hooray!

Stinking Peel Away

As happy as I was to use the Peel Away yesterday, now I am hating it. While I was able to finish one newel post this morning, I came home from work to finish the rest, only to find that the Peel Away paper had not only dried on but also separated as I tried to pull it off. So, not only is my railing not stripped but it also has paper stuck to it. I'm ticked. I searched the Internet and seem to be the only person who has experienced this problem. I guess I will recoat it again tomorrow (I need more paper and HD is closed now, dammit) and see if it will do the job this time, including taking off the paper.

Grrr.

Stripping Sucks

It will be interesting to see how many hits I get with that title - but, sorry, I'm talking about stripping woodwork. I have spent the past 4.5 hours stripping one - yes, count it, one - newel post. Sheesh. I haven't even started the railing yet, which is going to be an even bigger pain in the ass because at least the newel post has some flat surfaces. It looks like everywhere I didn't really glob on the Peel Away it just has stuck to it. I wonder if I should actually reapply more to the railing, now knowing this. (Un)fortunately, I need to stop for the day so I can eat something, take a shower, and get to work. There was another sign that I needed to stop for the day, however:

Yes, either all the scrubbing or the mineral spirits seems to have eaten through my gloves. I had a blister from last weekend's carpet removal and it even ate through the band-aid. I'm not sure how much was on my skin before I noticed. Yick.

Anyway, it already looks a lot better than before with the black nasty shellac it had on it. I was surprised, however, to see that the wood is not lighter. I wonder if the Peel Away actually only ate through the shellac rather than the stain. Not sure, but I'm actually pretty happy with the color so I'll probably just end up putting some poly on it. There are some spots that are going to need a bit of a do-over but that will have to wait until I can finish the railing. Woe is me.

Today's blog post brought to you by Peel Away

I realized that to strip the banister and newel posts I would have to remove the carpet, which I did yesterday. So, taking some expert advice from Sarah at Bangor Bungalow, I gave up on the Murphy's and paint thinner and switched over to the real stuff. I decided to splurge and got Peel Away 6, which you see at work now. I don't know yet how it will work but I am already pleased by the lack of caustic odor and drippiness. I will give it 24 hours and we'll see how it turns out. Keep those fingers crossed.

In other renovation news, I am giving up on the dreams of the 1920's-style bathroom. It seems silly to tear out all of our tile on our walls and in our shower, which is in really good shape, and to waste the tile we bought last year. On top of the plumbing issues I shared the other day, I think it's best to just go with a vanity, get our tile done by Miracle Method along with the tub, and maybe just add an accent strip of glass tiles to punch it up a bit. I bought some samples today from cooltiles.com (the place from where I bought the accent tiles for the kitchen) so we'll see what we can put together; it just makes more sense/cents this way.