DIY Dream
Our house turns 60 this year and has done well for it's age and the fact that it was a rental for many years. Poor thing. The only signs of it having had transient tenants can be found in the vintage case molding. It's been painted over so many times, the detail has started to fade under layers of paint. I chipped pieces off around the hall closet and trim to see what there: white, off white, black (geez), yellow, pearl, white, brown. Brown? This ugly, rosy tinted brown was the original color of the trim. Remember, is was a bachelor who did this back in 1949. I could have been paired with matching vintage wallpaper. I see no evidence now of there having ever been wallpaper, doesn't mean there wasn't at one time.
The case molding is rich in detail and solid wood. It is something I have wanted the house to keep but its in need of stripping. How terrible, how awful, all I could see before us was a slow moving project involving carcinogenic fumes, a huge mess and lots of hard work. Months of hard, frustrating work and fumes.
One day, looking up vintage case and crown molding, I came upon a video clip from the D.I.Y network that featured an eco-friendly product resembling cake frosting per the do-it-yourselfer. The guy smoothed this stuff over the molding with a spatula, covered it with paper that came with the product and left it for 12 hours. He then peeled back the paper and all the millions of layers of bad paint jobs came off with it. What was left behind was only the wood. He them ran a moist sponge over that and the surface was clean, back to it's original state after 150 years.
The product was never shown but after much pausing I was able to make out the name and looked it up. It's made to safely remove up to 32 layers of lead paint and not harm the wood. It is odorless, no fumes, can be thrown away in your regular trash. It can be caustic, though not toxic, so gloves and goggles are needed. I found Peel Away: 7 (for case and crown molding) just a couple of blocks away. I'm in love with this stuff.
The case molding is rich in detail and solid wood. It is something I have wanted the house to keep but its in need of stripping. How terrible, how awful, all I could see before us was a slow moving project involving carcinogenic fumes, a huge mess and lots of hard work. Months of hard, frustrating work and fumes.
One day, looking up vintage case and crown molding, I came upon a video clip from the D.I.Y network that featured an eco-friendly product resembling cake frosting per the do-it-yourselfer. The guy smoothed this stuff over the molding with a spatula, covered it with paper that came with the product and left it for 12 hours. He then peeled back the paper and all the millions of layers of bad paint jobs came off with it. What was left behind was only the wood. He them ran a moist sponge over that and the surface was clean, back to it's original state after 150 years.
The product was never shown but after much pausing I was able to make out the name and looked it up. It's made to safely remove up to 32 layers of lead paint and not harm the wood. It is odorless, no fumes, can be thrown away in your regular trash. It can be caustic, though not toxic, so gloves and goggles are needed. I found Peel Away: 7 (for case and crown molding) just a couple of blocks away. I'm in love with this stuff.
posted by Tera at
8/04/2009
1 Comments:
long live miracle products!
xo p
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