Rose's tips for stripping paint without ruining your moldings, your house, your cats or your marriage:
- Whenever possible, remove moldings or mantels to the outside. If that is impossible, use stripper and heat guns only in well ventilated areas. The EPA has written scores of brochures and booklets detailing the hazards of lead paint removal. When working inside, I used a HEPA respirator and vacuumed my work space thoroughly and frequently with a HEPA vacuum.
- Wash hands, taking special care to clean under fingernails, after working around lead paint. Eating lead paint is a no-no, and hands should be thoroughly cleaned after each exposure to leaded paint.
- Wash clothes separately after sanding or scraping old paint (pre-1970). I had "lead shoes" that I kept by the basement door, so I wouldn't track lead dust into our home.
- Establish work area away from foot traffic - so lead chips don't get tracked into home.
- Heat guns and household carpet are a bad combination. Most modern carpet fabrics will melt into an ugly nub when exposed to heat guns. Guess how I know this.
- When ready to stain, test an inconspicuous area (the back of your work) before applying stain to the entire surface. Allow to dry and apply varnish to this test area, to get a true sample of your finished finish.
- If you're going to do any serious amount of stripping, it's worth it to spend $75+ for a real heat gun. I purchased a $30 gun from a local hardware store and was sorely disappointed. I've seen hair dryers with more power.
- Leather/cloth gloves are most useful when working with heat guns and old splintering wood.
- Use nail nippers, rather than knocking old nails back through wood. Causes less trauma to the wood.
- Although it turns the house into a work zone, I carried the fireplace mantel (and other wood work) back into the house to apply the stain and varnish. I also turned off the blower (heater or a/c) so excess air and dust wouldn't circulate. As an extra precaution, I turned off the pilot lights on our gas appliances. The fumes from varnish and stain are flammable and I have no interest in finding out how many fumes it takes for my house to go POOF.
