1790 Center Hall Restoration

[DAP]

Here's some shots from our old homestead (ca. 1790). We finally have moved to restoring the center hall. My CEO and I busted booty on the hall, especially the CEO. It was one of the more challenging rooms in this abode.

I had to resize these pics so some of them lost some of their clarity ... sorry bout that.

First pic is the lovely 'BEFORE" pic of 100 yo wall paper (nice in it's time I'll bet) and some yummy shag carpeted stairs.

I apologize in advance for those shag carpeting advocates but for old home lovers, it is only one of an unending source of nightmares.
/forums/images/graemlins/ooo.gif

 

[DAP]

Next pic is after a few gallons of DIF, plaster repair and cutting in the chair rails and kick boards ... that's hand hewn oak on the floor, various sizes and over 200 years old ...

 

[jimg]

Nice side lights...are those original?

 

[DAP]

Stripping the stairs was great fun. NOT. They are pine treads and oak risers. Underneath that wonderful shag carpeting and padding was 3 layers of very very old lead paint. And the most fun was the crown moldings on 2 sides of each tread edge. The ONLY stripper (we tried em all folks) that works on the edges was a heat gun and a wire brush, one inch at a time. I'd say I have about 50 minutes a step just for the edges. The only thing that would strip the treads were the heat gun and a grinder. Hours of pleasure! /forums/images/graemlins/grin.gif The risers were sanded, sealed and repainted.

 

[DAP]

CEO decides on a period faux paint job with subtle stenciling above the chair rail and a dark striped paper below.

This was 3 layers of faux goop she did. I added wooden panel borders to that wall as you see later.

 

[DAP]

Yes Jim, we belive they are. So is the 1790 lock on this massive walnut door. CEO used the side light design for an oil cloth in another attached pick.

 

[DAP]

Early american designers frequently created "floor cloths" for flooring. These were standard canvas stretched and plastered and painted, cured with an oil varnish of some sort then affixed to the floor.

It was a sign of decadence because they needed so much maintenance. Kinda like SUPER lineoleum!

Here's one the wife made for this hall. She used the side light lead motif for a base design.

She's sumpin.

 

[DAP]

.... of the finished hall. Brass stair rods were added after the pic was taken.

 

[DAP]

Last, a really badly light pic of the hall. Sorry for the poor quality. The wall mouldings are in and the paper is done, rugs thrown, ...

next room ... /forums/images/graemlins/smirk.gif

 

[Robert_in_NY]

I sure hope you had proper protection if that was lead paint on those steps. One of the worst things you can do to remove lead paint is to use a heat gun. If the paint gets too hot it vaporizes the lead and that is very bad. Grinding is another bad thing to do.

Proper way to remove paint is to get a good ventalition system that has hepa filters hooked up to the room you are working in. Vent the place as you work in a proper outfit with at the very least a half face mask (full mask is better) with hepa filters and even then there is the full suit with outside air source so you don't have to breath in any of the lead vapors or dust. Chemical strippers do work if you get the good ones (they just take time and patience). If you must use any other method you should seal the room off from the rest of the house as the lead particles do not come out of cloth furinture and rugs.

We do lead abatement and I have sat thru a lot of classes that deal with lead and it is not fun. Hopefully you did not have any young children around your house while you were doing this and even now unless you have cleaned the whole house by hepa vacuming, washing and re-hepa vacuming the entire house before you let any young children play in or around it again.

 

[jimg]

Wow...very nice! Its surprising to find the the original door h/w. I really like the side lights A LOT!!

 

[DAP]

Robert ... we tested for lead and found it. Not uncommon for a house that spans 2 centuries. We vented while we worked and both had the double canister masks on. Commerical chemical wood strippers jumped back into the can when we tried them here. It was the only way short of dismantling the stairs and trying a chemical dip. I've seen this done also and the wood takes a beating. This kind of stair, if dismantled would probably never go back together quite right again. After careful consideration and a need to complete the task, we did the best we could with what we had as safely as possible.

/forums/images/graemlins/smirk.gif

 

[RobS]

Wow Doug, that is gorgeous! Great work, you and your wife should be very proud. Where can I learn more about the floor cloths? That would be a nice addition to our home /forums/images/graemlins/smile.gif

 

[DAP]

This, so far is the only room we used any stripes (striped paper) cause the chair rails were relatively straight. There taint another straight line anywhere else in this home!

Nothing flat, nothin straight, nothin centered - just need a string! Rulers, levels, plumb-bobs, lasers, stud finders - all useless here! (Well almost) /forums/images/graemlins/grin.gif

 

[Robert_in_NY]

Were just the stairs tested or did they test the whole house? What was the results after the work was done? It really isn't that big of a deal if there are not going to be young kids in the house but if there will be (especially kids 5 years and younger, babies that crawl are the worse since they will be playing where all the lead dust has settled). I would feel bad if they got poisioned because of it. I don't blame you for doing what you did but knowing how harmful lead dust is to young children and seeing the affects first hand (we do a lot of work where kids are handicapped because of lead poisioning) I would hate to see someone elses kid get hurt over something that still can be taken care of (maybe you already did). Hepa vacs (not the ones you get at Wal-Mart) do a good job of cleaning up after lead work but you also need to wash everything, the ceilings, walls, floors, windows, window sills (inside and outside) and any other square inch of the room and hopefully you had the room sealed off good enough that the lead wouldn't have contaminated any of the adjoining rooms too bad. The room looks great after all the hard work you guys did. I know how hard it is to get it all done and to look right so I know exactly how much work you guys did. Take care.

 

[DAP]

Rob .. heres a few links to the floor cloths. Most use updated materials and techniques, but the idea lives on. Ours are canvas.

First Link

Another ...

Some decorative ones ...

Last one, nice!

 

[DAP]

Thanks for the voiced concern Robert. We've found lead in some other rooms as well, mosly sills, floors and door jambs. For better or for worse, and not so atypical, most of the paintable surfaces have been paper over raw plaster.

In most cases, it is reasonably safer to SEAL and cover lead painted surfaces rather than try and remove them in my opinion - unless your prepared for extreme isolation and decontamination - beau coup dinero.



We have lots of kids, but most of them live in the barn (no **** sapiens in the house cept the 2 of us.) /forums/images/graemlins/grin.gif Not that that would make a hill o beans difference to the CEO. She has much more respect for animals than **** sapiens. Hard to blame her sometimes! /forums/images/graemlins/grin.gif

 

[Robert_in_NY]

I agree with the cover before remove treatment. We do a lot of work for the county and the cheapest way to get the most work done is to cover up the lead. That means cover over the walk ways that have wood trim, Cover stairs with vinyl, if we can not cover something with wood or vinyl we use an encapsulant paint to cover it first then we paint the finish color over it. The encapsulant is like a rubber so if the paint below it starts to flake off it will come off in one big sheet when it is ready. Is a lot better then individual chips coming off and small kids finding them.

 

[Hank]

I like the sidelights as well, but especially the walnut 8 panel door. From the lock closeup, it appears the raised panels are 8/4" which gives a really heavy raise and rich appearance.

I always thought the 8 panel door was better looking than the more common 6 panel. In the old days, the nickname for the 6 panel was "cross and bible"....for the pattern of the inner stiles at the top (cross), and the two panels at the bottom (bible). The 8 panel's nickname was "double cross" /forums/images/graemlins/smile.gif

 

[DAP]

Thanks Hank, I hadn't known their was any historic jargon for doors. Makes perfect sense though, seems to be a name for everything!

Learn a few things every day...