Friday, November 14, 2008

I'm A Stripper

Yep. You heard me. I'm a stripper now. Student by day, stripper by night. How cliche. Each night I come home and strip layer after layer...of paint, that is! Somehow I got it in my head that I wanted to strip the paint off ALL the wood trim in the house! Crazy, I know, but it's going to look great. The house is from the Arts and Crafts era and so it has wide, square trim that lived the window of the doors and windows. It's all original redwood, so leaving it covered in paint just doesn't do it justice. My mom, Chris, has actually done as much if not more of the stripping as I have, which is great because it takes FOREVER! There's 86 years of paint layers on that wood. It is pretty cool though to see what it was painted over the years. My personal favorite is the original light green color under the dark green, under the tan, under yellow, under multiple layers of white. It's going to take a long time to get it all off, but we'll just do one room at a time. I'm not in a rush, I just want it to look good. Once we finally move in I think it will be easier to just come home in the evening and do a little stripping whenever the mood strikes!

The paint beginning to bubble.

It would be great if it always came off this easily. Usually it's stubborn.

Two doors semi-done in the kitchen. They still need a lot of work, but it's a good idea of what it's going to look like finished.

My moms a stripper too!

This is the WORST place to strip. It's horrible.

My mom in action.

Attempting to strip the paint off an old hinge in the kitchen. Why would someone paint over something so beautiful?

6 comments:

Chris said...

It's 7 AM, and I love stripping so much that I'm about to jump in my car and make the 50 min. trip to your house once again. As tedious as it is, it's a rewarding job. Love your blog Ashley.

Molly said...

You guys are hilarious. I want to be a stripper! I guess it runs in the family. Starting next week I'm going to have all my evenings completely free until the end of January! So I'll come strip. :)

Sweetpea_and_Pie said...

being a stripper doesn't sound too enticing. i think i'll hold off on helping until an easier task is available. are there any easy tasks when it comes to home repair? the original wood looks beautiful, so it looks like it's definitely worth it. might as well get everything done right the first time around.

Christian Aufdermauer said...

just don't eat it cuz lead paint is no good for the body.

Ashley C. said...

Yeah, the whole process is pretty toxic, even without the lead. That paint remover starts burning your skin as soon as it makes contact, not to mention the nasty fumes. Scary.

Unknown said...

I have got to send this to Anson..having worked on ..well on the 3rd house right now..he will so appreciate this!! (as we do!)