Re-doing a room in an old house, what method do you suggest?

Question

I have an old house (80 or 90 years) and I want to redo the dining room. It has molding everywhere (floor, chair, crown, doors, etc.) the boards look and feel sturdy enough. I need to strip most of the paint on the molding and re-paper and paint the whole room.
I don't mind making this a huge project as far as labor as long as I keep the cost down.
Would it be a good idea to take the molding off the walls to strip and prime them and to make papering the walls easier?

Can you guys give me any other tips?

Answer 1

YES, take of the moulding and baseboards !! Do so VERY gently... then use a bio-safe chemical stripper to remove the old built up paint. Sand, prime, and paint.

Steam off any old paper and then apply a good float-coat and sand to give you an extremely smooth surface to put the new paper on. Can't help you with the paper as I'm a faux-finisher.

Good luck with the room !!

Answer 2

The only reason to strip the paint off the molding is if you're intending to bring it down to the original wood and stain it. That's a lot of work to restore old molding. If you're just going to re-paint the molding you can just sand it down, coat with primer and re-paint.

Depending on the amount of old paint you need to remove, it might be easier to leave the molding up and sand it in place. This will save you the time of removing, patching and re-installing the molding. Remember that no-one is going to be inspecting ceiling molding up close and a good coat of paint will hide most of the areas you don't sand all the way down. You can buy or make contour sanders to get in the curves and grooves. I don't recommend a power sander...too much dust. You can also use a fine chisel to remove old paint from grooves. Be careful you don't gouge the wood, but even if you do, you can fill it with putty.

If you feel like you can't get good enough leverage or it's just too difficult to sand them in place, take them down. Just be very careful and work slow when removing them. If you break a piece, you might have a hard time finding a replacement. Another alternative would be to tear it all out and replace it with new molding, but that depends on how authentic you are trying to be with the re-model. If you save the molding, make sure you number or otherwise mark each piece so you'll know what order to put it back up. Fill the old nail holes with putty and drill new ones for your finishing nails when you re-install.

Answer 3

We've been dealing with this and my son for a while (he's 18 months). He likes to climb into the rocking chair, and onto our dinning room chairs. I tell him to sit on his bottom. I'll tell him twice, and the third time I'll remove him saying "mommy said no no." He's never allowed to climb a table (coffee table or dinning room table). If he does that, I tell him no and redirect him to something else he can do. I try not to make things a big deal unless I have to. The bigger a deal I make, the more likely he is to want to push the boundaries. But no does mean no in our house (no matter who's said it). I think what you're doing is great!! It's good for them to learn boundaries and that no means no. Be consistent and be firm! They'll learn!

Answer 4

Clean the walls with bleach water, then apply kills to the walls.