Lately, Garth and I have made strides forward in our home while also not accomplishing tons of work that appears to be huge or significant. It is funny to me how our projects have worked out since moving in. I intended to tackle the kitchen first and move on from there, but so far the Gods have dictated that we focus on every area of the house before the kitchen. I am not sure how this has happened, but it has. A few weeks ago I contacted a drywall pro recommended by a friend with the hopes that he could sweep in and magically fix our kitchen with the handful of first time homeowner dollars we had kicking around in our bank account. I showed him the kitchen job– not a huge space that only needs the upper half of the wall drywalled– and I walked him through our front hallway pointing out that we could use help in both places. He choose to take on the hallway first, claiming it would take no time at all. Fifteen hours and all of our hire-someone-else-to-do-the-job money later, we had a nice, smooth hallway and a kitchen that looked no different. Sigh.
I must admit that the torn drywall in the hallway was something I was not prepared to deal with. Neither Garth or I know much about mudding, and we certainly don’t know about repairing walls we’ve just ripped to shreds by removing wall paper that was adhered with super glue to unprimed walls. For this reason, I am glad our expert started with the impossible task, even if it did leave our poor kitchen waiting. As Garth started to show in the last post, the hall looks great now. The walls have been smoothed and painted with a warm gray– it feels very clean and calm to walk down the stairs or in the front door. Though I am enjoying the feeling that something that seemed un-fixable has been fixed, now my attention is further drawn to the other un-fixable area of the hall– the banister.
The banister that leads up our staircase has been treated with a crackle/antiqued looking paint job. I think this textured look was chosen to disguise the nicks and gouges in the wood that keep it from appearing completely smooth. This visual trick does work, but the crackle paint is too much for me in our little hallway.
Once we had keys to our house Garth and I both started to attack different areas. He ran to the hardware store for paint stripper and applied it generously to the bottom half of the banister, waited the recommended amount of time, and tried to strip the crackle paint away. It came off in places and hung tight in others. I would later reapply the stuff and try this myself. More paint was removed but even more stuck to the banister. Ugh.
After trying to sand the paint down with no success I worked on the upper portion by hand, using a retractable razor blade to gently scrape away the top crackled layer. Some came off, most stayed behind. In this way, I have been spending ten to thirty minutes a day scraping at the banister and nothing will come off without a fight.
I am stuck on this small portion of the house with no great solutions. Have any of you ever successfully removed this kind of paint treatment? I can’t seem to find the right trick, and the half chipped bannister looks even worse now that we have cleaned up the surrounding walls. So, dear readers, lob your suggestions at me. What do I do next to make the crackle paint go away for good? Please, HELP.
If you used one of those “less toxic” strippers from the hardware store, I’m not surprised that the old paint has held on. The super-toxic stuff is typically the most effective, but I just cannot bring myself to use it inside my house.
I’ve used Soy Gel non-toxic stripper with some success, but it takes time. I usually apply the stripper, cover it with plastic and leave it for 6-8 hours. Time is your friend with this stuff.
Also, if you’re down to an original layer of paint, it might be milk paint (I can’t tell how close you are to wood in the pics). In that case, milk paint remover will work well. It’s also non-toxic, but is harder to work with than the gel strippers.
When I was stripping paint in my old airstream I couldn’t get many layers off with paint stripper and ended up using a wirebrush attachment for a my power drill. I’m awful about manual labor–if there is a power attachment that will make it easy I am taking it!
Perhaps this would work if you used it carefully to loosen up the top layers of paint and didn’t dig into the wood too much, then save that last final bit for hand sanding
You might try using a heat-gun type paint stripper. Check with a local tool rental company. I have used them to remove paint from the exterioe of houses. Good luck.
I’ve had a lot of luck with orange eco-striper, I took a faux finish off of a dresser that way.
I love using my heat gun. Just hold it around a small section for about 15 seconds and then as the paint starts to bubble and crackle further, you can gently scrape it off with a metal putty knife. For the trickier edges, you can cut a metal putty knife to the shape of the banister (as if the blade were doing a 45 degree slice into it).
Another trick is to use these weird sanding blocks that they have at the hardward store. They look like they are made from lava and pumice stone. They can be cut easily to the shape of the banister and work pretty decently to get you started. They will shatter if you drop them and you will need a few.
Orange gel stripper
Heat gun
Mr. Clean Magic Eraser
a steamer works well no toxic chemicals.
http://www.archive.org/details/JohnLeekeSteamPaintRemovalClip
Johns site explains the process.
definitely a heat gun/but the fumes can be NASTY: ventilate and respirate!
Do not use the wire brush attachment to the power drill. (Sorry Molly.) This is fine for stripping some metals but will destroy the wood. I’ve done a lot of furniture and woodwork refinishing. And hated every second of the stripping. Really the most effective and quickest thing will be the extremely toxic paste stripper found at any hardware store. If you go this route you’ll have to take all the safety precautions & make sure not to track it anywhere else in your house. You might want to think about removing your banister and spindles so that you can either (1) do the stripping and sanding outside or (2) take them to a antique refinisher who has a dipping vat. Getting all the pieces dipped will remove most of the paint. It also will really raise the grain of the wood so that lots of sanding will be necessary. Good luck with this unenviable project.
I’ve used the Orange Gel a few times and only had good results once. I’m thinking it might have had something to do with me running the heater full blast for 24 hours prior to stripping. I have no idea if the cold/moisture really affected the stripper but that’s the only difference I could think of between my fails/single win.
[...] which I carefully wiped into plastic bags. Compared to the nightmare I am having getting our banister stripped, this job was a cinch. My best guess is that this was because the paint on the hall stand was [...]
Heat gun! Heat gun! It’s so much fun, so addictive….you’ll have the banister stripped and half the foyer before you come to your senses…just remember to ventilate….
Try manual scraping with a proper tool:
http://www.profhdwr.com/62500.htm
They take off a lot of material quickly.
Practice on an inconspicuous area to develop control, and be aware of the grain direction in the wood to avoid tear-out.