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thepaintedlady_gw

Paint removal (lead) risks

thepaintedlady_gw
12 years ago

So my husband and I bought a Queen Anne Victorian, it has some lovely trim which people have rather overzealously painted over in the past 115 years of the house's history.

No surface has been spared. The trim on the first floor was originally quartersawn oak and the trim in the rest of the house is something softer (it has always been painted).

In anycase, most of the trim is getting restored, the windows are all being removed and re-glazed and repainted (off site). I'm having the painter do what he can with the trim.

My question is about the doors: the doors, like the rest of the house, have been beaten into submission with a series of terrible paint jobs, I don't know if it is worth it to have someone come take a crack at them, or to attempt stripping them myself.

They have the original hardware (crystal door knobs where the family was and wood ones where the servants would have been) and I think they were oak and pine (oak for the family, pine for the servants).

So, how terrible is my lead exposure here for I take a heat gun and a putty knife and start hacking away? Assuming I am using some kind of mask and gloves?

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