# dr. awsome's house remodel



## Dr. Awsome (Oct 6, 2009)

The wife and I purchased out first home last April. It's located near the University of Utah in Salt Lake City. The home was build in 1896 and was in good structural condition but in a desperate need of a face lift. I'll be posting pictures of the work we have done over the next few days. Hope every one is ok with me showing off my handy work.


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## Dr. Awsome (Oct 6, 2009)




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## Dr. Awsome (Oct 6, 2009)

When we bought the house the front room and the master bedroom looked horrible. From what we could tell there was at least 5 layers of wall paper over plater and lath. We had one month overlap between buying our house and having to be out of our apartment so we decided to tackle those two areas first since they would be the most difficult to do after we had moved in.

We recruited quite the army of people to help. We were able to have about 7 people helping us on the first day. With that much help we were able to peal off the wall paper (it turns out there was 11 layers) remove any loose plaster and hang 23 sheets of drywall with a first coat of mud. It was a long hard 13 hour day.










The father in law and his contractor starting to put up some dry wall.










More dry wall in the front room.










My parents helping out










getting closer to a finished look










In the bedroom all the plaster came down with the wallpaper.










More in the bedroom










With the new drywall










Close to 10:00 PM on day one.










More at the end of day one, and my poodle standing guard of his new home.










Sanding some mud


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## Dr. Awsome (Oct 6, 2009)

More sanding










Front room after primer










The final color


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## stuart45 (Jun 20, 2009)

Great job, well done. Like the colour scheme as well. You didn't fancy putting the lime plaster back then?


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## Dr. Awsome (Oct 6, 2009)

Nope, not a fan of the plaster. We wanted a perfectly clean and smooth look. I don't have the skill or time to do that with plaster.

Since we have moved in we've also gutted and redone the kitchen and dinning room. Currently we are working on ripping out the back yard so it will be ready for plants in the spring. I'll post more pictures when I find them.


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## stuart45 (Jun 20, 2009)

A wise choice, lime plaster is hard to use if you are not used to it. A lot of our old houses are Listed buildings and English Heritage make you replace the old lime plaster again. Luckily my house is old but hasn't been listed yet. It's actually a criminal offence to alter a listed building without their consent, and carries a prison sentence.


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## Dr. Awsome (Oct 6, 2009)

My home is in a historic district. I read the rules and regulations very carefully before I started to do any work. In there rules they have lots of buzz words that would easily scare someone who doesn't know what they are doing, but in the end all it says is the home has to look like it would fit in the original era from a street view. Other than that it's up to the home owner to make it fit there needs.


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## Scuba_Dave (Jan 16, 2009)

Moved to Project showcase forum

Looks like you have a big project


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## tripflex (Sep 15, 2009)

pictures don't work...

scratch that...had to use firefox running through my proxy server, our stupid filter at work blocked the pictures...ugh


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## Dr. Awsome (Oct 6, 2009)

I found some of the pictures of my kitchen remodel. When we moved into the house the kitchen was functional but horrifying all the same. The cabinets were old and built into the house. The stove was blocking some of the cabinets so they couldn't be used. At one point the PO painted the cabinets to try and make them look better. I guess he didn't know you can't paint over laminate and the paint was peeling off. The laminate flooring had some tares and it was obvious some water had seeped into the sub floor. We started by trying to do simple changes to help the aesthetics but ended up taring the whole thing out and starting from the ground up. It took almost half a day to pull out the old cabinets with my hammer after finding some used cabinets online.
Once the cabinets were out we started on the flooring. The old laminate came out nice and easy but we found a wonderful surprise under it. Who ever had laid it down had also put in a new sub floor of particle board that had got wet. We ended up pulling out the sub floor an putting in a new one.



















Underneath we found the original floor from when the addition was made.



















On the left you can see the rough plumbing for the new sink. We moved it from looking at a wall to looking out into the back yard. A much needed improvement. 










We decided on a black and white linoleum. 

Walls primed










The wife choose the paint color and it turned out to be too dark for the space. Plus when we painted the wall we discovered the PO didn't know how to mud or texture. We're not sure which they were going for. 



















We ended up having to skim the entire room with a few coats of mud to get it smooth again.



















This is the color we ended up going with.


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## Scuba_Dave (Jan 16, 2009)

Very nice change - I like the floor & the wall color
I has 12 layers of flooring at my last house - what a mess
Kitchen was one of the 1st things I did at my last house, 1st was the bathroom


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## sbmfj (Oct 3, 2009)

what did you use to cover the black and white tiles, seems like a light green sheet of some sort....


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## Dr. Awsome (Oct 6, 2009)

The flooring is a sheet linoleum and the green sheet you can see while we are painting is just a painters tarp.


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## kimber (Aug 24, 2009)

great job..can't wait to see more pics !


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## AtlanticWBConst. (May 12, 2006)

Dr. Awsome said:


> The flooring is a sheet linoleum and the green sheet you can see while we are painting is just a painters tarp.


So, how much of the materials in that house was asbestos?


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## Dr. Awsome (Oct 6, 2009)

I have a chimney that was used for the original furnace that is no longer needed. I would like to remove the entire thing since it has no use any more and is taking up space in my master bedroom. 


Here is the chimney sticking out the roof. You can't see it from this angle but I can see sun light shining through is several spots.










This is the area of concern for me. If I don't have to take this out I would rather not. 










This is where the chimney goes from the outside of the house to the inside.










During our first phase of remodel I put this box around the chimney to cover it up. I didn't do a very good job because of lack of time and I knew it would be coming down in a few months.

From the master bedroom the chimney continues up into our upstairs bathroom. It's not visible since it's behind a wall.

My plan so far is to start taking it out from the top down. I'll either rent an air chisel or use a cold chisel and BFG to break apart the mortar and then lower the bricks down. I don't want to have to break into the wall in the bathroom if I don't have to.


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## Dr. Awsome (Oct 6, 2009)

AtlanticWBConst. said:


> So, how much of the materials in that house was asbestos?


Most of the house has been gone through and redone at one point of another. The addition the kitchen and master bath are in was done in the 80's but everything else in the house I have no idea when it was updated. So I guess to answer you question I'm not quite sure, but I don't think I have worked in any areas that would have asbestos in them.


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## Dr. Awsome (Oct 6, 2009)

I've had an unexpected turn of events :furious:. We had carped scedualed to be installed friday so last night I was trying to rap up a few odd jobs I wanted to get done before hand. One of which was reinforcing a wobbly hand rail at the top of the stairs. Appon inspection I decided the wood it was anchored to was shot and would need to be replaced so I started pulling it out. I guess the vibrations from me hammering my wonder bar under it were to much. I started to have plaster and lath come off the walls in sheets.  So today I need to call the carpet installer and move back the install a few weeks so I can take down all the plater and replace it with drywall. It will be a good thing to have done. It's one of the last big projects I have to do in the house and will vastly improve the look upstairs. I'll be posting pictures of the progress of course. I have a two week dealine since the wife is throwing a baby shower in the house.  Wish me luck.


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## gma2rjc (Nov 21, 2008)

Good luck! You'll get it done in time. Set your deadline for the day before the shower, just in case something else unexpected comes up.

It's going to look great!


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## Dr. Awsome (Oct 6, 2009)

As promised I took some pictures of the area we will be putting drywall and the area that cause of the whole mess.

Here are out steps. They are incredibly narrow at 28 inches so we are going to pull the plaster off instead of just putting drywall over it to save that inch.










This picture is of a drop in the ceiling that will prevent us from taking a queen size bed up the stairs. I'm going to take the opportunity and move it back so we will have more clearance for large furniture. Currently there is a 46" max width.










Where the wobbly banister used to be. There was almost nothing to anchor it to, hence why it was all wobbly. Once again, my poodle always enjoys watching me work.










And finally all the plaster that fell off the wall while I was pulling the banister out.










Also in the plans are a new sub floor for the whole upstairs since the original one is 3/4 pine planks and are rather warped and bowed. We will be pulling plaster off as soon as I finish clearing out the upstairs and get the new sub floor in. I figure it will be easier clean up with an even floor that doesn't have lots of cracks and grooves in it.


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## Handyservices (Oct 16, 2009)

Plaster is one of those materials that will crack and break off under certain conditions

Your large project looks good. Gotta keep at it regardless of setbacks.:thumbsup:


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## Dr. Awsome (Oct 6, 2009)

This is a project I knew I would need to do. I just was hoping to push it off until next year. It will be good to have it done. Then I can move onto doing to final stage of remodel in the master bed and bath. Once that's done it's on to digging out the basement and reinforcing the foundation. :thumbsup:


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## Dr. Awsome (Oct 6, 2009)

Today's progress included finishing moving all the items from the upstairs so we can start pulling plaster off the walls. I was able to do that in a few hours. Then I taped up the door way at the bottom of the stairs to try and keep the dust down.










The progress so far. 60-70% of the plaster is down.


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## Dr. Awsome (Oct 6, 2009)

It has been a busy weekend. We were able to finish pulling all the plaster off this morning. Yesterday we spend most of the day pulling plaster and taking it to the dump. Today we finished the final details of the plaster and cleaned up in prep to start hanging drywall.










We ended up needing 51 sheets of material in all. It was quite a feat loading them into the truck.










We had a few friends come over and help hang the drywall on the ceiling. We discovered quickly that we can't get a 4x8 sheet up the stairs. The turn at the bottom that just won't allow it. So we ended up having to cut them down to 4x4 sheets to get them up the stairs.










I'll try to post some more pictures once I get more drywall hung. At the moment we have drywall on all the horizontal space that I wouldn't be able to hang on my own. Tomorrow after work and after I do my school work I'll start hanging on the walls.


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## Dr. Awsome (Oct 6, 2009)

I was able to get all the drywall hung in the hallway last night. There was a lot of trimming to do. There was only one 4X4 sheet that didn't require cutting. Tonight I'm going to work on the bedroom and hopefully have time to start on the stairs. The goal is to be mudding by Friday.


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## gma2rjc (Nov 21, 2008)

Keep up the good work! 

These pictures are going to be priceless when you're completely finished. It's hard to believe, but you're going to look at them and say, "I forgot how much work we really did on this place."


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## Dr. Awsome (Oct 6, 2009)

Last night I moved my 11 sheets of sub floor upstairs after cutting them down to 4'x4' sections. I'm almost done with the back bedroom. I only have a few more sheets to hang, maybe an hour or so. We had to take out the light to hang drywall on the ceiling and I haven't put it back up yet so I can only work that room during the day time. The stairs are getting close to being finished as well.
Now I'm to the point where it doesn't make sense to keep hanging drywall until I knock back the section above the stairs. I need to reroute some electrical and update it in the process which will be the project for tonight.


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## Dr. Awsome (Oct 6, 2009)

I updated some of the electrical last night and started mudding what drywall I have hung. I wasn't in the mood to hang more but I needed to make more progress.



















The seam tape is going on easier with out using a banjo. I guess I just couldn't get the hang of that thing. It's taking a little longer but the result will be better in the end.

Tonight I plan on knocking back the hump above the stairs. I'm a little nervous about this one since I've never done it before. I also discovered last night that all the electrical upstairs is still node and tube. I thought it had been mostly updated. So now I need to decide the best way to replace it. It's looking like I will need to pull up the sub floor to run new wiring and install junction boxes for all the ceiling lights at the same time.

It's starting to look like I won't hit my deadline. There are too many things that need to be updated that I wasn't planing on.


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## shumakerscott (Jan 11, 2008)

*Bigger Than Expected*

It always turns out "Bigger than expected" Keep up the good work and good spirits. Dorf dude...


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## Dr. Awsome (Oct 6, 2009)

Just a quick update, I've been mudding as much as I can. There are a lot of seams to take care of since I had to cut my sheets to 4X4 to get them up the stairs. Everything is going well and a few walls are ready for paint. I'm really pushing hard to make my deadline. I've been working until midnight everyday this week and most likely will pull an all nighter this weekend. I can see the end is sight, now it's just a matter of pushing through and getting there. :thumbup:


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## RST (Jul 19, 2009)

*Narrow Steps*

Great work, I just read through the entire thread. Our last house had narrow steps like yours with a tight entrance. No way to make larger due to the layout. We could not get our queen bed's box springs through. We ended up cutting the 3 wood pieces on the frame that the springs are secured to, folding it in half, and then rejoining them once it was upstairs. It actually worked out well. You can also buy folding queen box springs. 

Keep up the good work, you're making great progress. RST


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## diy mike (Mar 8, 2008)

The previous homeowners must have watched the same decorating shows as my mother. She thought it was a good idea to paint a bedroom with the exact faux finish you had in your kitchen before. I mean the _exact _finish - mottled yellow on top, some nasty color below.

She loved it. I thought it looked like someone smeared sh*t all over the walls. :laughing:

Great job with the renovation! Can't wait to see some more 'finished' pics... :thumbsup:


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## specialguest (Sep 10, 2007)

Are you pulling down the lathe strips as well before you hang the drywall? We just did the same work in a house me and a buddy are renovating. We gained about 2 inches everywhere there was wood paneling and plaster/lathe in the house.


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## Dr. Awsome (Oct 6, 2009)

I've been leaving the lath and only removing the plaster. If I were to do this again and had more time I would probably pull all the lath, but with only having about 2 1/2 weeks to complete the project I decided against it.


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## Dr. Awsome (Oct 6, 2009)

Last night I decided to start on the section of the project I dreaded the most. With time running out fast I couldn't put it off any longer. I cut out the old studs that supported the ceiling above the stairs and started to frame in the new one. I was able to raise the ceiling 24" which will give me 70" of clearance to get a mattress up the stairs. My goal was to get > 62 so I'm rather pleased.


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## Dr. Awsome (Oct 6, 2009)

It took me two night to get that darn stair way framed in. :furious: This is my first framing project and I went about it completely backwards. Two days ago I started framing in all my horizontal pieces to get my heights set and level and then I was going to fill in the vertical pieces. Last night I discovered with the space I had that wasn't going to work. I ended up pulling it all out and then making the vertical walls in sections and the putting them in place. Doing it this way I was able to get everything up in a few hours. Next I had to re-route some electrical over the new raised ceiling. This is where the night got fun. I turned off the power, went back up and proceeded to cut a wire to give myself some more working room. Well, I ended up welding my wire cutters together. Now I go and turn off any other circuits that I thought it could possible by. I tested the wires with my multi meter and got a reading of .06 volts. I'm still nervous at this point because I'm 16 feet in the air on a ladder. I know there could be some major injuries if I get electrocuted and knocked off the ladder. While I was working the power must have turned on to it I got hit and hit hard. My hand went numb up to about my elbow for the rest of the night. I'm lucky that I didn't get knocked off the ladder.  At this point I said [email protected]#& it and flipped the main for the house and finished holding a flashlight in my teeth. It's all complete and cleaned up. Tonight I finish hanging drywall and then it's on to mud, paint and putting down the new sub floor. I have until Thursday the 5th to complete the project. My goal is not to take any time off work. It's going to be tight but I'll make it.:thumbup:


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## Dr. Awsome (Oct 6, 2009)

More progress with out pictures.  Sorry guys. On saturday my dad came up to help. We found some super shotty wiring so we ended up spending most of the day fixing that. On sunday I was able to get the rest of the drywall up. It's getting down to crunch time. I have 5 days at this point. It's going to be a busy week :thumbup:


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## sbmfj (Oct 3, 2009)

good luck!!


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## Dr. Awsome (Oct 6, 2009)

Well it's crunch time. I have the carpet coming to be installed tomorrow at 2:30. At the moment the drywall still needs work. We decided before we have the carpet in we should pull all the moldings so we don't have plaster fall all over our nice new carpet. So I've been filling the holes left from that as well as the 9" strip around the floor left from removing the base boards. I still have some drywall to hang along the floor and a few more seams to tape. There are some walls that are ready to paint and everything else is somewhere in between. I have the heat in the house cranked up to 85 to help in the drying process. Before I go the bed tonight I need to have the mud done and the new sub floor in. It's going to be a long day but it will be worth it. If I have time I would like to roll primer on the walls but it's looking like I'll be lucky to get ready for the carpet install.
I've been working so hard I have not been taking any pictures. As soon as life calms down a bit I'll post some of the finished result.


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## Dr. Awsome (Oct 6, 2009)

Last night around midnight I did an evaluation and came to the conclusion that I would not be able to hit my deadline without killing myself. By killing myself I mean calling in sick to work and working straight until the installers showed up. This simply wasn't worth it to me. I'm a little bummed I wasn't able to get it done but that's life I guess. I'll continue to keep mudding today after work in hopes that we can get some primer down before the party tomorrow.


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## Dr. Awsome (Oct 6, 2009)

Took the day off yesterday from working on the house. I think it was a very needed break, but tonight it's back to work. The tally so far is 32 sheets of dry wall that had to be cut down to 4x4 sheets, around 15 lbs of screws just over 500 feet of seam tape and 5 boxes of mud.


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## Skuce (Nov 2, 2009)

Cool pics


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## Dr. Awsome (Oct 6, 2009)

I've started getting back into the project. Saturday my dad came up and we installed a new subfloor in the entire upstairs. We laid it over top of the old plank floor. Screwed and glued with liquid nail at a 45 to the old flooring. The 45 made it a little tricky but worked out very well and leveled out the whole floor. It will make it much nicer when we finally get our carpet and hardwood in. I'll try to post pics. The mud is nearing completion in some areas and still needs several coats in others. The current goal is to be ready for paint by next weekend and have moldings up in time for thanksgiving. Then we can put the carpet in which is all we wanted in the first place. It's a large project but it's one that will be good to have completed.


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## Dr. Awsome (Oct 6, 2009)

Finally more progress has been made. I hired my brother in law to come in a help me out. I was simply becoming overwhelmed with the project. Over the thanksgiving weekend we were able to finish mudding the walls and get a coat of primer on. :thumbsup: Today we'll be fixing all the little things we missed. I'll try to get some pics this afternoon.


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## shumakerscott (Jan 11, 2008)

*Pics not Blog*

Take more pics so we can all see what you are doing. Come on, lead us this far and then only text?? dorf dude...


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## Dr. Awsome (Oct 6, 2009)

Don't worry, I'll be taking pics every night this week. This is the transformation week. The one that visual progress happens fast and makes the whole rest of the project worth it.


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## Dr. Awsome (Oct 6, 2009)

ok, pictures as promised.

My brother in law has been a huge help. I don't know if I would have been able to keep my sanity much longer if he wasn't helping me the past week.



























This is my favorite progression shot.





























It's going to be very close to completion by saturday. We once again have a party to toss (the wife loves to entertain) on saturday evening. We have the carpet going in on thursday or friday depending on what's best for the installer. Tomorrow we roll the color, wednesday the base boards go on.


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## Dr. Awsome (Oct 6, 2009)

We finally had the carpet put in. It looks wonderful and is a great feeling to have it in. There is still some trim work to be finished and I need to trim down a couple doors but I should be able to rap up this project pretty quick.










We hired my brother in law to help us out, while the wife and I were both at work he decided to paint a stripe down the back of our poodle and turn him into a skunk. A rather funny sight to come home to.


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## gma2rjc (Nov 21, 2008)

You're making a lot of progress!

What do you think the dog would say if he could talk?

"Oh! The humanity!"
or
"Skunk, huh? Well, I left the guy with the brush a pile of something smelly in the living room.


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## Dr. Awsome (Oct 6, 2009)

It's been a while since I posted. I haven't made much progress.
Today I started stripping the paint off of one of the doors. I decided I would rather refinish the original solid wood doors that replace them with hollow core.

My dad had some very old paint stripper that he gave me to try. It's some crazy stuff.









The door with the stripper on it










after removing the first coat after an hour wait.










The amount of paint I got off the first time.










after removing the second coat of stripper.

After the green it's the real wood. :thumbup:


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## a new DIY-er (Jan 19, 2010)

I love following the progression threads. I hope you haven't lost all your momentum!


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## Dr. Awsome (Oct 6, 2009)

I haven't lost momentum completely.  I haven't finished to door yet but I'm getting close. I'm to the point of scrubbing all the detail work with a wire brush. Lots of elbow grease but it will be worth it.
I ran in to a snag that set me back a while. I shot a nail into one of the wires for a light so I had to cut out some drywall and replace it with a new one. The wire ran a three way circuit and the who ever ran it decided to use two pieces of two wire romex so I replaced it with a four wire instead.
Yesterday I cut the last few pieces of base board and trim for the doorways upstairs and got a first coat of paint on them. I'll finish those up today. I'll need to do a small amount of patch work before I can put two of the door molding up. The baseboards have been a pain. We decided to use a tall base to go along with the old styling of the house. They turned out to be so tall I couldn't cut them with the chop saw so I had to do all my miter cuts with my table saw.
I'll try to put up some pictures of the progress in the next few days.


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## mferguson0414 (Jan 6, 2009)

I just finished reading/skimming through up until now. I wish I would of had as much time as you, and money to get some stuff updated in my home before moving in. I would love to remove all this plaster in my home, very jealous of you for that. It has to be a good feeling at the end of each day when you have looked back at all you have done, keep it up!


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## Dr. Awsome (Oct 6, 2009)

It's good to hear some encouragement. Thanks guys! :thumbsup: This last push has been a little bit more mentally taxing than the rest. Trim always is for me, but the fact that I'm having to strip off paint that is probably 60 years old so I can get a smooth finish is much more time consuming and difficult than I thought.
I was able to get the bathroom door to the point where it's ready to paint. I had to strip off around 5 layers of paint that was as hard as a rock to get to the bare wood. I little bondo on a few spots and it should look as good as new. Well worth it to save an original hard wood door. :thumbsup::thumbsup:
There are only a few places I need to strip off more paint off old door frames and stair tread edging and I'll be done with that phase. It's been a bugger of a task. I'm hoping to have the all the trim put up and caulked by next Tuesday.
Sorry no new pictures today.


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## Dr. Awsome (Oct 6, 2009)

Did some work again last night. I put some bondo on the door to smooth out a few spots, fill dings and gouges and rolled on some primer. I also chipped off all the nasty paint in the stair way and I'm soar today because of it. With a little bit of hand sanding that trim will be ready to prime and paint.

Here are some pics





































You can kind of see how chunky the paint is. This is typical of all the trim in the house.










The old paint chipped of fairly easily it just took a little persuasion.


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## a new DIY-er (Jan 19, 2010)

I haven't gotten to the point of needing to strip any old paint, but I have a few pieces of furniture that I'm eyeballing for future projects. Since I've never stripped any paint or stain, I'm rather hesitant to start until I've researched it as well as I can. 

I tend to research my way out of any action though, the best thing may be for me to just start it so that I have to finish.

Thanks for the updated pictures!


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## Dr. Awsome (Oct 6, 2009)

I think paint stripping is one of those things that's hit or miss. I've seen some people that are very good at it, me on the other hand seem to have a hard time. I'm not sure if it's the product I'm using, if I'm not waiting long enough, not putting the striper on thick enough, or a combination of all three. I hope to get better at it with time since I will be doing it to three other doors in the house.

Diving in head first is a dangerous method to learn but often the one I find myself doing the most. I say if you think you have the skills to do it than jump in. I'm sure the water isn't too cold. :thumbsup:


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