{"id":264,"date":"2011-11-29T22:44:06","date_gmt":"2011-11-30T03:44:06","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/ridiculousredhead.com\/?p=264"},"modified":"2014-09-03T22:31:39","modified_gmt":"2014-09-04T02:31:39","slug":"i-have-lost-my-mind-painting-the-house-part-7","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/ridiculousredhead.com\/?p=264","title":{"rendered":"I have lost my mind: Painting the House Part 7"},"content":{"rendered":"

One of the reasons most people love old houses is the beautiful old wood trim detailing. It adds character.\u00a0 It’s the jewelry.\u00a0 I am one of those people.<\/p>\n

The downside of wood trim is that it does not last forever.\u00a0 It’s lifespan depends on\u00a0it’s care and maintenance.\u00a0 Wood from the 1930s is old\u00a0growth,\u00a0meaning it\u00a0is a stronger, tighter grained wood even without chemical preservatives like with today’s pressure treated wood.\u00a0 A good amount of the trim on the outside of my house in at least 78 years old.\u00a0 It has sat through 78 years of summer sun and winter storms.\u00a0 Old peeling paint is also not a very good protector.<\/p>\n

Knowing this I expected there to be some damage that I would have to repair.\u00a0 I often mistake the fact that I am\u00a0a psycho researcher for actual knowledge and plan projects that I have no business taking on.\u00a0 Just because I have watched the This Old House video of a bathroom being tiled 14 times does not in fact mean I can get my own bathroom tiled in a day.\u00a0 So since this whole project was huge already I tried to be conservative.<\/p>\n

If I came across a board that was rotted and soft, I feared that removal, replication and\u00a0reinstallation\u00a0of said board would end terribly.\u00a0 It would end up like this:\u00a0a hole in my house,\u00a0a pile of wasted (& expensive boards) that I had cut incorrectly and couldn’t use, a large\u00a0bill from the only carpenter who was willing to come fix my mess in\u00a0November before the snow came and TB threatening to leave me.<\/p>\n

I instead purchased two products\u00a0from Abatron\u00a0that would help me save as much of the wood as I could.\u00a0 The first is Liquidwood<\/a> which is a wood hardener.\u00a0 You take the wood you have scraped completely and then brush this stuff on where it sinks in and hardens.\u00a0 It comes in two parts that you mix together to activate.\u00a0 Pretty simple and I thought maybe too simple to actually work.\u00a0 Here is a picture of the porch door sill after scraping.\u00a0 The wood was so soft that I didn’t need anything but a putty knife to get the paint off.\u00a0 The vertical riser board under the sill was so soft it was shredding like a spagetti squash.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

I applied the hardener product and left it\u00a0overnight to dry.\u00a0 My biggest problem with all this was the weather.\u00a0 It needs at least 50 degrees to work but prefers around 70.\u00a0 It was a little chilly overnight and in the morning still sticky.\u00a0 I gave it another day to sit in the sun and we were set!\u00a0 If I had had optimal weather, the box says it will dry in 1-6 hours, which seemed to be true when I used it on a window sill in warmer weather.<\/p>\n

After it’s cured the wood is darker and hard!\u00a0 I mean it’s probably better than it was originally.\u00a0 From there I hit it quickly with a sander to knock off all the frayed bits that were hardened sticking up.\u00a0 Then these were ready for primer.\u00a0 It was hard to get a great picture but I highly recommend it.\u00a0 In one spot the wood was almost turning to dust and now is hard and painted without removing the whole piece.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

The second product is WoodEpox<\/a>.\u00a0 It’s a two part\u00a0putty that when mixed and cured can be sanded and painted.\u00a0\u00a0 I used it to fill in some small spots that had worn away, you can see it as the white spot in the above picture on the door sill.<\/p>\n

I also had a small problem with rotted trim on the cross piece you see below.\u00a0 My guess is the original stairs started right below the door sill.\u00a0 These stairs are much lower and leave the porch boards coming through the wall and\u00a0leave the end exposed.\u00a0 Exposed means rot which you can see in the above pictures.\u00a0I pulled off the\u00a0rotted\u00a0trim\u00a0that was covering it and wasn’t sure how to deal\u00a0with it.\u00a0\u00a0I figured I would give the epoxy a shot.\u00a0 Instead of filling in an area I would build out an area and make the end of the boards into a horizontal trim piece. \u00a0I applied the putty and then sanded after it hardened.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

It does not look very nice here I will admit.\u00a0 I was under the gun with a short window of warm weather that had been shortened with my eye injury.\u00a0 I was a little worried that it would, well, look like crap.\u00a0 But the truth is that my adored wood trim has seen 78 years of wear and tear and the epoxy fits in now that it’s primed and painted.\u00a0 A perfect job would have looked out of place.\u00a0 Or at least that’s the story I am sticking to.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

One of the reasons most people love old houses is the beautiful old wood trim detailing. It adds character.\u00a0 It’s the jewelry.\u00a0 I am one of those people. The downside of wood trim is that it does not last forever.\u00a0…
Read more<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":267,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[18,23],"tags":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"http:\/\/ridiculousredhead.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2011\/11\/IMG_0286.jpg","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p1J4KT-4g","jetpack-related-posts":[{"id":800,"url":"http:\/\/ridiculousredhead.com\/?p=800","url_meta":{"origin":264,"position":0},"title":"The Office Trim in Progress","date":"June 9, 2012","format":false,"excerpt":"So as I mentioned yesterday I am well into refinishing the wood baseboard trim that was originally installed in my house in the 1930s. \u00a0It has been an adventure from the start. \u00a0This is one of those projects where you know you are opening a can of worms and you\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Before & After"","img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/ridiculousredhead.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2012\/06\/stripper-on-trim-.jpg?resize=350%2C200","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]},{"id":732,"url":"http:\/\/ridiculousredhead.com\/?p=732","url_meta":{"origin":264,"position":1},"title":"Demo Day in the Office","date":"May 11, 2012","format":false,"excerpt":"When we decided to put new floors in the living\/dining room in December, we also bought enough of the same floor to go in the office and kitchen. \u00a0We knew for a number of reasons we would have to install the floor in stages. \u00a0Tomorrow is stage two, the office.\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Before & After"","img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/ridiculousredhead.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2012\/05\/office-floor-2.jpg?resize=350%2C200","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]},{"id":274,"url":"http:\/\/ridiculousredhead.com\/?p=274","url_meta":{"origin":264,"position":2},"title":"I have lost my mind: Painting the house Part 6","date":"November 21, 2011","format":false,"excerpt":"The main motivation for repainting my house at this time was the paint that was literally falling off.\u00a0 This means that in order to paint we have to strip the woodwork.\u00a0 I would normally have done this first and then paint everything after but the winter is coming.\u00a0 I didn't\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Before & After"","img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/ridiculousredhead.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2011\/11\/IMG_0256.jpg?resize=350%2C200","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]},{"id":784,"url":"http:\/\/ridiculousredhead.com\/?p=784","url_meta":{"origin":264,"position":3},"title":"This place is a mess","date":"June 8, 2012","format":false,"excerpt":"I know I have been rather scare around these parts lately. \u00a0It is not because it's summer and I am sitting at the beach getting tan. \u00a0I don't really tan. \u00a0In fact when I went to Vegas a few years ago, a guy came up to me and asked if\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Green Ideas"","img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/ridiculousredhead.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2012\/06\/IMG_1249-764x1024.jpg?resize=350%2C200","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]},{"id":256,"url":"http:\/\/ridiculousredhead.com\/?p=256","url_meta":{"origin":264,"position":4},"title":"I have lost my mind: Painting the house Part 5","date":"November 11, 2011","format":false,"excerpt":"So now that the shingles are all blue we move on to an accent color. I have an overall vision for the front of my house that will take me awhile to complete.\u00a0 This includes taking out the metal framed windows enclosing the porch (that are actually just storm windows)\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Before & After"","img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/ridiculousredhead.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2011\/11\/IMG_0111.jpg?resize=350%2C200","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]},{"id":739,"url":"http:\/\/ridiculousredhead.com\/?p=739","url_meta":{"origin":264,"position":5},"title":"The new office floor","date":"May 16, 2012","format":false,"excerpt":"On Saturday we got to install the new floor in the office. \u00a0It was a long morning. Since we had already installed this same flooring in the living room, we knew the deal. \u00a0We had figured out who was good at what and we all had jobs. \u00a0The floor itself\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Before & After"","img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/ridiculousredhead.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2012\/05\/staple-gun-crop.jpg?resize=350%2C200","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]}],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/ridiculousredhead.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/264"}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/ridiculousredhead.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/ridiculousredhead.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/ridiculousredhead.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/ridiculousredhead.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=264"}],"version-history":[{"count":7,"href":"http:\/\/ridiculousredhead.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/264\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":290,"href":"http:\/\/ridiculousredhead.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/264\/revisions\/290"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/ridiculousredhead.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/267"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/ridiculousredhead.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=264"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/ridiculousredhead.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=264"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/ridiculousredhead.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=264"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}