Done, done, and done

Pocket doors — done. Phew! What a difference it makes to have them nicely and neatly wood again instead of that hideous white paint. I have a sneaking suspicion that they might have been in a lovely wooden state prior to the previous owner (who was a realtor) putting the house up for sale — I think she may have had a “paint it white” frenzy to prepare it for sale. Sigh. Best not to even think about that.

The important thing is that they’re done; they look great, and I can cross that off my project list (this gives me immense satisfaction). And here’s how the two rooms look with the doors open, and in case we’ve forgotten…. here’s where we started:

From the dining room, looking to the living room

From the living room to the dining room

Hideous white pocket doors and pretty lame curtains.

Paint removal beginning, Fall 2010

Rod & Darlene

Since I was fuming the place up and using all sorts of chemically things, I thought it would be a good time to give Rod and Darlene a once-over with liquin. I bought these two paintings from the artist, Jorge Costa, and he advised me to clean them with a product called “liquin” every year or so. I hadn’t done it for a while, so today was the day.

I love these paintings and can sit and look at them for hours. Still — they’ve been with me for probably seven years and they still fascinate me. Getting up close and personal with the liquin gives an even deeper connection with them. I can feel the brush strokes and the way the paint was applied, and I’m nose to nose with them and can see the colors and brush strokes. They’re such amazing paintings, and very difficult to photograph.

Pocket doors — finished on living room side (yay!)

So here’s my proven Gudenov paint removal method for doors:

1) Scrape off as much as possible with a heat gun and metal putty knife
2) Use Peel-Away 7 to remove remaining paint and varnish — this is especially helpful on molding and curvy carvy bits.
3) Wipe everything down with mineral spirits, using steel wool
3.5) If you’re really nit-picky, you can also wipe down with denatured alcohol
4) Use dental picks and sand paper to get up any other resistant areas
5) Give up on getting the corners of molding totally clear of paint

I’ve tried so many different methods, but that seems to be the best — fastest, least amount of muscle power, and with dramatic results.

I’ve now put one coat of stain and one coat of wipe-on poly on the living room side, and I think that’s how they’re going to stay. When they’re totally dry (next weekend), I’ll polish them with Burt’s Furniture Polish.

And now, to the dining room!

Pocket doors round two

I remembered why I was dreading doing these. The dust, ugh. It gets everywhere, including up my snout, even though I’m wearing a mask. I look like I have a deep mahogany tan, too. It’s such a mess. But the end is nigh.

I gave up on these doors last fall (early November) when I ran out of personal steam and also needed to turn on the steam heat. I’ve been working like a dog all summer (not my dog, whose idea of work is choosing which couch she’ll sleep upon, but like a busy dog, maybe one that works on a farm or teaches English), but have this week off-ish. I did prep work yesterday (napping was involved), but have been uncharacteristically industrious today, completing the final sanding of the dining room side of the doors. This just as the power sander bit the dust, as it were.

So am going to explore chemical stripper in the basement for the parlor/living room side of the doors. It’s too much for my feeble arms to sand by hand without the electric sanding guy. I’m hoping to get them both in their barest state today and start the staining process tomorrow. I’d like them done by September 1. They look pretty fab, if I do say so myself. And they’re going to be AMAZING once they’re all stained and sealed.

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Little tiny project

I have a stereo cabinet in the living room that has great sentimental value to me. It was my parents’ and I can remember pulling record albums out to play and sing along to when I was a kid. The records are gone, the record player is gone, but the little blue cabinet remains.

In an attempt to bring it up to 20th century standards (21st would be al di la’ for me), I knocked some of the album separators out and put my CD holder in there. It was sort of unsightly. I kept thinking I’d put a curtain in there, but never got around to it…. until today.

Got some great marked-down fabric at Osgood’s ($6.00), a piece of fabulous pom-pom fringe — without which no project should be — ($6.00 with more left over for cat toys), a wooden dowel and two cup hooks ($1.98), so let’s call it $15.00 with tax and driving time. It took about half an hour to drill the holes, get the cat to press the wrinkles out, do the sewing and hot glue gun the pom-poms to the top. Et voila’ — a rather elegant way to hide my unsightly (and protruding) CDs. Yay!!!

You may note that there is a big empty area in the living room. I’ve got my eyes peeled for an inexpensive (ideally, free) chair that I can reupholster in a wonderful flamestitch fabric upon which I have my eye on ebay. Nature hates a vacuum.

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