Just wanted to let everyone know that, amidst a monster renovation, we did go forward with cleaning all the woodwork to prepare for new shellac. After all the advice on solvents and strippers, we just stuck with plain denatured alcohol, steel wool (various grades) and brass brushes (various sizes). We went through A LOT of alcohol, gloves, wool, brushes and rags!! We worked much more aggressively on the oak (in an effort to lighten it a bit) and gentler on the fine grain wood(maple/birch/cherry? not sure what the exact species is). Will share pictures soon... now that we are finally ready to re-shellack (will be employing the help of a pro painter, but giving him specific guidance & oversight on handling shellac). I am now in the process of trying to source the freshest canned shellac (Zinnser) that I can. For the technical folks out there who know shellac - Zinnser advises using a 2lb cut blend on woodwork trim & doors; the can comes pre-mixed at 3lb cut. To step it down to the 2lb cut, the instruction is to blend 2 parts alcohol with 5 parts shellac. Wondering if others have followed this guidance, or just applied straight out of the can? After this epic prep, the last thing I want to do is screw up the finish... I'll have the painter thin it out as directed, although I was hoping to make this process as straightforward as possible for him to avoid mistakes. The other thing I need to grapple with is the possiblity of tinting the shellac that we'll use in the dining room, which was a tinted shellac to begin with (in a brown cherry tone). We'll test how the clear shellac will work on it, but I think we'll have to use a tinted shellac to even out the variations in the wood's tone after the cleaning process. Also as we widened a doorway in that room and had to have a new header replicated out of white oak, so I think a tinted shellac would help with blending (I've already rubbed the new wood down with "dirty" alcohol during the cleaning to begin to match it). I was thinking of experiementing with a universal colorant (we don't want to use amber/orange in there). The plan is to hit the rest of the house (which has an orange glow) with clear shellac. Again, if anyone has technical advice in this area, it'd be great to hear! Here is a link that might be useful: Shellac Application Data

Removing Paint from Siding. There are two tools that, in our experience, are very good at taking paint off siding, and a lot better than the traditional heat and scrape, or scrape and sand methods.. 1. Silent Paint Remover is one. This tool is a GIANT STEP above heat guns and the dangers they cause. The other is 2. Paint Shaver. This is a mechanical, high speed stripper that uses replaceable carbide blades. Which one we use depends on the paint to be removed. Silent Paint Remover is slower, but does a very neat job requiring very little sanding. Paint Shaver is faster, but takes a bit of practice to remove the paint without putting a lot of crescent-shaped divots in your siding that require a lot of sanding out. One mistake to guard against using this tool is setting the depth adjustment for too-aggressive a cut. You don't need to remove all the paint, just the loose paint, so don't try to get down to bare wood in one pass. When you are removing paint, you hope the original painter did a lousy job so it will come off easily. If he was good at his job, it's going to come off hard no matter what tool you use. Keep in mind that the EPA lead abatement rules govern the safe removal of any exterior lead paint. As a homeowner, they may not apply to you, but follow them anyway for everyone's safety. Both of these tools are commonly available at a deep discount over retail from e-Bay and Graig's list. We have used and cannot recommend the Metabo or Wagner machines. They don't work nearly as well as the suggested machines. Repairing Plaster To repair cracked or falling-off true plaster you need to reattach it to the wood or metal lath underneath. The traditional way is with screws and plaster washers. These usually extend proud of the wall, making them difficult to conceal except with thick coats of patching plaster. The better way is to glue the plaster to the lath. There is a commercial kit to do this called Plaster Magic which we like, but which we also think is pretty expensive. We just use our own, locally available materials, that work just as well and are a lot less expensive. Here's what to do: 1. Using a concrete bit, drill about 3/8" holes in the plaster until you hit the lath -- do not drill through the lath. You will feel it when you reach the lath. You will want to drill about 1" on both sides of any crack, putting a hole about every 4-6" along the crack. Its a judgment call. Drill as many holes as you think you will need. If in doubt, more is usually better. For large loose areas, drill about every 4"-6" in the field and every 4" around the perimeter of the loose plaster area. Sometimes you will hit the gaps between lath strips. Don't worry about it. Just move about 1" away and drill again. 2. With your trusty shop vac, suck the plaster dust out of each hole. This is important, plaster dust interferes with the adhesive. 3. Using your caulk gun and a good construction adhesive (we like Power Grab, but any quality adhesive should work. In a pinch, we have used most of them at one time or another and none have failed.) squirt a good glob of adhesive into each hole. This will probably be messy, so have some mineral spirits and rags around to cleanup any drip-out. 4. Make a bunch of 4" square wood washers. You can make them out of job scrap. We use 1/2" or 3/4" OSB most of the time just because it happens to be around. Drill a hole in the center of each washer - 3/16" or 1/4" ought to do it. 5. Line the washers up with the holes you drilled earlier and, using a drywall screw, attach the washer to the wood lath beneath the plaster. You don't need to screw into every hole, about every 4-6 holes is a good rule of thumb. What you want to do is put even pressure over the loose plaster area and draw it back to the lath. This will allow the adhesive you just applied to bond the lath tightly to the plaster once again. As you tighten the screw, you will feel the plaster draw in. DO NOT try to sink the screws all the way in one go. Draw them in gradually moving from screw to screw. This lessens the risk of cracking the plaster further. When all the screws are sunk, you are done until tomorrow. Go have a beer. 6. After 24 hours, remove the screws, put them back in the box (they can be reused) and throw the washers away. The plaster is now stuck solidly to the lath once again. There are no screws or washers in the wall - so finishing the plaster is much simplified, and this fix is strong. The adhesive sticks like, well, like glue. 7. Using patching plaster, a setting joint compound, or even regular joint compound, patch the screw holes, cracks and fill in any missing plaster. The purists will tell you that joint compound has a different texture than real plaster and is softer, so you should not use it. It does have a different texture and is softer, but so what? The paint will hide any differences. 8. We recommend against paper tape on cracks. What we use is nylon screening -- the stuff in screen doors. buy a role from your hardware store and cut it into 6" strips while it is still rolled up -- its easy to cut with normal shop shears or even your utility knife. Use this in place of nylon mesh tape -- it works better. We embed it in a thin coat of joint compound, then, when the first coat of mud has set, mud over it. Its wider footprint is better at stabilizing cracks than narrow nylon mesh tape. In fact, we have never had a repair fail using this method. Removing Layers of Paint from Interior Trim Definitely use a commercial stripping service if you have one in your area. At $1.00 - $2.00 per linear foot, the price is well worth not having to deal with the mess of stripping in place or on saw horses in your garage. After stripping be sure to sand with a fine sandpaper to remove the fuzzing that stripping causes. Good luck.

Looking at your closeup picture, I can't tell if: 1) the wood was painted at one time and then someone stripped the paint off. If so, they did a pretty good job, but didn't get all of the paint out of the wood pores (I'm guessing it's oak) before putting a clear finish back on; or 2) the white speckles are simply deteriorated finish. I once accidentally spilled latex on an oak parquet floor and even though I got it quickly cleaned off, I couldn't get all of the paint out of the pores without sanding. I'd start with Joseph Corlett's advice about using a Scotchbrite pad and acetone to see what you can clean off. If the white stuff remains, that may mean it's paint and you may have to sand if you want to get rid of that look, particularly if it's latex.

For your question #1, the usual answer is go with hardwood over engineered, unless there is a reason not to so so (concrete sub floor to which you cannot put in fasteners, etc.). Since you mentioned Mercier, they have exceptionally nice finishes, and you can specify the sheen (or at least you could in the past). When comparing their engineered vs. pre finished hardwood in the same species and finish, you can even mix and match with no differences if you pre-arrange this with your supplier or distributor. Also, are you using an installer? You should since you are using a higher quality flooring. Your message seems to imply you are doing some of the work DIY. The difference between a DIY install and someone with years of trade/craft experience will be noticeable, IME.