Thursday, October 8, 2009

Epic FAIL

Dear French Door(s),
We had such grand plans to stain you a gorgeous shade to match our refinished floors, didn't we?  I am sorry that after one gallon of Smart Strip, eleventy million dozens of sandpaper sheets, hours of scraping, glopping, picking, heating, sanding and screaming later, you are still covered in a thin, seemingly impenetrable layer of gross oil-based paint. 

We rejoiced when the wood grain started peeking through, but the end still wasn't in sight several 'strip sessions' later.  After our best efforts, the paint still clung to you like Nicole Kidman to her Botox needle.   

And quite honestly, we are tired.  We want to do other things.  There are really good shows on tv this fall that aren't going to watch themselves!

So, you will soon be primed and painted white.  Again.  Like all the other doors in the house.  And you will have to like it.  But don't worry, you will look beautiful.  And I will get drunk on the power of HBO and Showtime on demand for the first time in my life.  And probably drunk on wine, too.     

Take heart, though. Your original hinges are looking mighty spiffy, so that's something.
               
We hope you can forgive us. 

Love,
Sara and Shaun

5 comments:

  1. Aww, what a bummer! At least, with all that hard work, the white paint will go on smoothly.

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  2. Nothing like a coat of smart white paint to perk up a door. Maybe it didn't want to be stripped to the bare bones? French doors can be modest too.

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  3. Before you paint, make sure you neutralize the stripper really really well! Like, ridiculously well. Ridiculously, 'this is so overkill' well.

    After our stripping debacle, we wiped all our window trim down with vinegar. We primed then painted. As the paint was drying, brown liquid oozed up through the paint. Almost looked as if my crisp white trim was bleeding fry oil. GROSS!!

    Wiped it down again and did another coat. By the 3rd coat of white, it wasn't oozing as much but it's still not perfect. It was really only the closet window that did it bad {and you can still kinda tell if you look close} but I wasn't putting a 4th coat on. Sometimes done is better than perfect.

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  4. Original hinges do look spiffy. How did you make them so pretty?

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  5. I boiled them in an old pot with a few drops of goof off. This makes the paint come right off. Then I washed them really well with dish soap, let them completely dry out, and spray painted them with bronze Rustoleum! I could've left them alone after the cleaning, but I wasn't into the brassy color. Boiling hinges will take old paint off of hinges every time!

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Thanks so much for reading....your comments mean a lot to me!
Sara