Particularly in older homes,
you could find almost anything
under the existing top coat.
When we bought our home
in Clanwilliam we found
about four coats of old gloss
paint in the most horrendous
colours, which had been
painted over beautiful Oregon
pine.
We started trying to
strip it ourselves over holiday
weekends, but eventually
handed the job to a contractor.
Before wasting your time
stripping, make sure you have
no rotten wood.
Anything
that is soft needs to come
out and be replaced. It is not
always necessary to replace a
whole window frame – a good
carpenter can repair anything
and save you money.
So, once you are sure that all
your surfaces are solid you can
get ready to start stripping.
I
will look at this in more detail
next week as we go through
the different possibilities.
These include sandpaper,
chemical strippers and heatguns – all of which involve a
lot of hard work as you really
need an even surface to start
painting on. So I’m giving you
a week off to build up the
necessary energy.
If you have a question for Don, send it to [email protected] or SMS only to 0824463859.