Old House, TONS Of Paint...

[High_Plains_Drifter]

I have the land abstract on my house and property. It goes back to when it was originally sold to the rail road by the government in 1851. There was 40 acres with my little place here then, and it was inherited by family that bought it from the RR more times than it was sold. But the house is old too, just a little thing, and I'm redoing the kitchen. I could just tear the whole works out and start over, but I have a liking for the original build. So I'm stripping all the old paint off the kitchen cupboards and staining them. I like the wood grain and I've kept some of the originality alive. But there is layer after layer of old paint on them, and at one point they were even OLIVE GREEN, if you can imagine that...

Long filthy process but rewarding I think. Almost used a gallon of paint stripper already. Here's what the first coat of paint lifting looks like... and there's 3 or 4 more layers under that... have to do this at least that many times to get it down to wood where I can run the belt sander on it...



Going to do the floor next, put down some kind of hard laminate that has it's own adhering on it, then new cupboards along the opposite wall, then a new stainless steel stove with stainless steel behind it, and a new stainless steel range hood... and I think I'll be done.

[Abbey Marie]

Lol, the olive green was no doubt from the ‘70s. Though I think we called it “Avocado Green”

I like what you’re doing.

[High_Plains_Drifter]

Second coat of stripper, you can see a tiny spot of the old "avocado"... LOL. I might get away with only two applications of stripper. Isn't this exciting? ... I knew everyone would be overjoyed...



Pile of paint from the first go around... they just kept PAINTING... good Lord...

[PostmodernProphet]

I look forward to the reveal.....

[jimnyc]

Reminds me of my house, and the dang idiot that owned it prior.

One of the first few summers, I suddenly could barely open the basement door which I use to get to the garage & also the door to the back patio at the time. The paint was swelling and making it more difficult. So, maybe sand down the doors, or at minimum sand down the upper and side of the doors. Well damn, I sanded away what was a white door at that time and found stinking ugly orange underneath! But kept on going to get to the wood, and a damn rainbow appeared! I think the knucklehead painted like 12 times instead of ever sanding.

And yep, same with our kitchen cabinets. Same with some other doors around the house. This guy was about as cheap as they came. I know this from jobs he did around the house but also the neighbors filled me in on the rest of his antics. Lucky me, horror stories after the money was spent and it's now MY home.

[Abbey Marie]

In our old town house, we had to renovate the kitchen. There was layer upon layer of wallpaper on the backsplash. A whole wall full. The grease from the stove made it crazy hard to remove. It took forever, trying both chemicals and steam. Ugly stuff, too.

But that wasn’t even the worst part. Another entire wall was shingled. I’m talking actual cedar shingles that you put on the exterior of a home. Layered up just as it would be outside. Each shingle had a bunch of nails. When all the shingles were removed, the wall looked like it was involved in a shootout. Hundreds of nail holes.

ETA: the former owners’ horrible taste went on and on. The powder room was papered in highly metallic Kelly green and silver on every surface; even the ceiling. It looked like a room-sized Christmas gift. A very ugly Christmas gift.

[High_Plains_Drifter]

Couple that are already done...

[SassyLady]

Our solution to wallpaper, popcorn ceilings and crappy flooring in old house we bought was to strip everything down to studs, rafters and floor joists. No time spent stripping anything.

[High_Plains_Drifter]

Reminds me of my house, and the dang idiot that owned it prior.

One of the first few summers, I suddenly could barely open the basement door which I use to get to the garage & also the door to the back patio at the time. The paint was swelling and making it more difficult. So, maybe sand down the doors, or at minimum sand down the upper and side of the doors. Well damn, I sanded away what was a white door at that time and found stinking ugly orange underneath! But kept on going to get to the wood, and a damn rainbow appeared! I think the knucklehead painted like 12 times instead of ever sanding.

And yep, same with our kitchen cabinets. Same with some other doors around the house. This guy was about as cheap as they came. I know this from jobs he did around the house but also the neighbors filled me in on the rest of his antics. Lucky me, horror stories after the money was spent and it's now MY home.

Yeah removed a lot of paint from the back edges of the doors too, and I notice mine are closing a lot better than they used to too.

[High_Plains_Drifter]

Hmmm... lots of deep nicks and such in this old cupboard door... the others were nowhere near this bad... don't quite know what I'll do with these... the doors are laminate I believe, and if I keep sanding I could sand off the wood grain.

Don't want to leave those deep nicks with the white paint in them though... maybe dab a little stripper onto them... IDK... any suggestions?