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yhzinpdx

Help me get from A to B!

yhzinpdx
14 years ago

We just bought our first home and are hoping to paint some of the original wood white and darken the remainder. Any ideas on the best way to get from A to B? We have no experience whatsoever, so no detail or recommendation is too basic:)

This is the way it currently looks:

This is the color we're looking for:

Also, is it sacrilege to want to remove that wood trim part way up the wall?

Comments (7)

  • handymac
    14 years ago

    Get new doors and stain/finish like you want.

    Will be much faster and ultimately less trouble/expense.

  • yhzinpdx
    Original Author
    14 years ago

    Thanks handymac, is that because stripping is so much work or because we're unlikely to be able to get the colors right? Is there a way to refinish the wood to get it to look more like dark walnut and less orangey?

  • handymac
    14 years ago

    Stain or dye will not work on finished wood. Getting the finish off the wood trim/doors in your photo's would need to be done by professional strippers or take many hours of DIY stripping/scraping.

    It is relatively easy to apply a shellac based primer(Zinsser's BIN is the one I usually use for interior priming) and then paint that trim.

  • yhzinpdx
    Original Author
    14 years ago

    Thanks for the great advice. I think we'll have some professional strippers do the bits we want to keep wood and paint the rest white.

  • karinl
    14 years ago

    There is a lot of discussion on the old house forum about stripping woodwork - troll around there for old threads. My own old house has woodwork with about 8 layers of paint on it, and it has been (still is) an ongoing trudge to strip it all. Yours looks like a piece of cake to me in comparison.

    True that you can't stain over the varnish that's on there, but you can certainly paint over it - for the dark finish, with a darker clear coat, assuming you can get such a thing. And painting white over top would obviously be fine - just that you might need to get an alkyd/oil based paint or varnish as a latex/water based product might not stick well.

    KarinL

  • karinl
    14 years ago

    There is a lot of discussion on the old house forum about stripping woodwork - troll around there for old threads. My own old house has woodwork with about 8 layers of paint on it, and it has been (still is) an ongoing trudge to strip it all. Yours looks like a piece of cake to me in comparison.

    True that you can't stain over the varnish that's on there, but you can certainly paint over it - for the dark finish, with a darker clear coat, assuming you can get such a thing. And painting white over top would obviously be fine - just that you might need to get an alkyd/oil based paint or varnish as a latex/water based product might not stick well.

    KarinL

  • yhzinpdx
    Original Author
    14 years ago

    Thanks karinl, I'll check out the old house forum and am glad to hear it looks like a piece of cake!

    Alex