We retrieved our doors from
Houck's Process Stripping today and Sharon thought she should write an update for anyone thinking about undertaking a similar project. The doors were $120 each to strip, including the waste disposal fee. (We also brought in one of the sets of French doors separating the living room and the entryway and they'll be $735 to strip. This project is really going to add up.)
Houck's did a mediocre job, as there is still quite a lot of paint in some of the crevices. These doors are definitely not stain-ready; we'll still have to work out the rest of the paint from the crevices, or figure out how to touch them up with a paint/stain to cover the light paint. Also, as we've been warned, we'll have to sand these doors before we stain and shellac them.
We also got a not-quite-a-surprise that one of the doors had been altered to make it wider. Sharon had realized it had the joint, but didn't realize the fix had been so poorly done in a light-colored wood. We're also going to have to fix this door. It seems sort of weird that Houck's didn't even bother to strip the paint off this edge.
We retrieved our doors from Houck's Process Stripping today and Sharon thought she should write an update for anyone thinking about undertaking a similar project. The doors were $120 each to strip, including the waste disposal fee. (We also brought in one of the sets of French doors separating the living room and the entryway and they'll be $735 to strip. This project is really going to add up.)
Houck's did a mediocre job, as there is still quite a lot of paint in some of the crevices. These doors are definitely not stain-ready; we'll still have to work out the rest of the paint from the crevices, or figure out how to touch them up with a paint/stain to cover the light paint. Also, as we've been warned, we'll have to sand these doors before we stain and shellac them.
We also got a not-quite-a-surprise that one of the doors had been altered to make it wider. Sharon had realized it had the joint, but didn't realize the fix had been so poorly done in a light-colored wood. We're also going to have to fix this door. It seems sort of weird that Houck's didn't even bother to strip the paint off this edge.
Sanding doors is about the most unfun thing ever, next to sanding trim. I think each door took us about 30-45 minutes to sand both sides to be stain ready.
ReplyDeleteAfter using an orbital sander all over the doors, hand sanding with bricks should remove most of the remaining paint in the crevices, but you probably will have to do some paint touch-ups after staining. Houck's does the best they can do not gouge up the wood, although it is strange that one edge wasn't stripped at all.