Stripping the last of the hallway woodwork

It's taken me weeks and months to build up to finish this job, because it's just. so. ghastly.  I HATE stripping paint, and I really dislike sanding - it's just so dusty.

But as I'm starting to run out of jobs to do in the hallway, I'm starting to run out of excuses.  That and I had bought the carpet so I needed to crack on and get the painting done.

This is how I had left it before I painted the walls, so the majority of the architrave was done, but I still had the doorstops to do.

I tried to protect the flooring a bit with an old towel, but it still made a big old mess.

Years and years of layers and layers of paint...

The greeny coloured layer was really stubborn, to the point where the heat gun didn't seem to be shifting it.  I stopped for a rest and just thought I'd give it a go with the mouse sander with a really coarse grit sandpaper (40), and like magic, it all came right off - yay!  I'd already taken off layers and layers of paint before I got to this point, so I don;t think a mouse sander would have been time efficient without the heat gun first, but just look at this beauty.  Bare, naked wood.  All ready for a fresh lick of pure brilliant white paint.

The mess along the way...

I had to take off the kitchen door to get to all the nooks and crannies, and it's still off its hinges until I finish painting. Probably should get round to doing that...

All in all it took me a whole day to do 5 door frames (and remember that's 5 half, half, door frames really as I was only doing one side, and I had already done most of the architrave bit).  I wore safety glasses and a dust mask, but I think I should have been a bit more careful.  I was so ill that night and for a few days afterwards, that I'm not sure if I fumigated myself or something.  Not good.

But it's done! Finally!

I can;t believe how much I underestimated the job that is tackling a hallway/stairs.  It's just such a huge space as it's so tall, and it has sooooo many doors!  Ours has 8 in total - nuts.  This means lots of architraves, lots of corners, lots of tricky bits.  And stairs also mean lots of spindles to paint!  But I love how far it has come, just the last little bit to go now.

Which jobs have you done that you completely underestimated the time investment?

Hallway Progress - Stripping Paint

Before the plastering, I tried to strip as much of the architrave around the doors.  With 7 doors opening into the hallway there was quite a lot to do!  You might ask, why even bother?  We painted them when we first moved in, but because the paint was chipped underneath, the patchiness just showed straight through the paint:

So back to the bare woodwork it was.

Tools I used:

• Heat Gun
• Paint Stripper Hand Tool (here is the one I use: http://www.wilko.com/preparation/wilko-5-in-1-tool/invt/0343146)
• Extension Lead (the lead on the heat gun wasn't very long)
• Protective Glasses
• Gloves
• Bucket of water - just in case the wood gets too hot!
• Palm Sander
• Dust Mask

Some parts of the architrave stripped really quickly, other parts were much more stubborn.  The key is to keep the heat moving slightly so it doesn't scorch the wood, then just as it starts to bubble, attack it with the scraping tool!  I damaged the wood in a few places where I tried to scrape it before the paint had softened properly and gouged into the wood instead - oops!  Nothing a bit of wood filler can't fix though.  That's just because I was so impatient!

The wood was then very rough so I sanded it down with my palm mouse sander:

The difficulty I have found, is I'm not quite sure where to stop...! You can see if the picture above I have done all of the wood that is visible from the hallway when the door is closed.  Trouble is if I keep going, I could go on forever with all the woodwork in all the rooms!

I managed to do the bathroom doorway, and started on the spare bedroom doorway, when all of a sudden... the heat gun stopped being hot!  It was still blowing air out but it just wasn't hot.  By the time I had gotten the heat gun exchanged (Screwfix were fab), time was flying and the plastering was imminent, so that was as far as I got before the plasterer came.  To be continued...