Hi,

I have a spare bedroom in my house that I am using as my painting "practice" room. All the rooms in my house need to be painted.

The PO painted before we bought the house and I must say they did an awful job. While I'm not a perfectionist by any means, certain things bother me. They painted over EVERYTHING. Even the electrical outlets and switches...not just the plates, but the actual switches and outlets. I will have my electrian friend replace those and buy new outlets and plates...easy fix!

The problem I'm having now are the mouldings. They are a mess with paint drips/runs/chipping paint. I had to remove the baseboard mouldings to remove the carpet, and actually purchased new ones that just needed to be cut to size and painted.

But the window and door mouldings are a little intimidating to me. I want to use what I have, but need to clean them up. I was at Sherwin Williams this morning and the salesman told me to buy Gloss-Off Cleaner. They did not have powerdered Dirtex (said they haven't carried it in 3-4 years). I said I'd try it.

Anway, I would like to take the mouldings down, clean them, sand them to remove the sheen and any chips, and then put them back up before painting.

My questions are:

1. What is the best sandpaper to use, and if using the gloss off, do I still need to sand to remove the gloss? I cleaned one...and it still looked pretty glossy to me.

2. What is the best thing to use for filling the nail holes? I will be fixing the old nail holes and the holes from the curtain rod/blind that they (in)conveniently put in the mouldings.

3. Will I need to prime, and should I do that before I put them back up?

4. I have read in this forum about caulking mouldings like in the miter joints etc...is this correct? If so, what type of caulk is used for this?

I'm not looking for perfection but want it to look decent. This is the room I am "learning" on before moving on the the living room/dining room! :-)

Thanks in advance for any help!

Kathy