wear a wrist brace when stripping and sanding! I have restored another old hold and hurt my wrist years ago, it has flared its ugly head again! I have been to a hand doctor, CT scans and such.. and basically, I have an overuse injury, I've worn away the cartilage! It's finally feeling better after a cortisone shot, but I still wear the brace and it is helping! Back to stripping.. I should be more careful, but I'm not as careful as I should be wearing masks and such... but try at times! What I have found is that in my kitchen and baths (4) they used this green, sticky primer and when I tested for read, it was positive with-in a split second. The other rooms did not have the same green primer, and when I tested, it "kinda" turned red.. so I'm not sure how much the lead really is in the other areas. Every square inch of wood in our house (trim, doors) is cypress. It's a pretty wood, and it looks like it has always been painted from day one, as I see no varnish, and I happen to love painted wood, not stained, so I'll be repainting by choice. 90% of my house TRIM is now stripped after 3 weeks of working everyday! (using a heat gun) I will still need to tackle all the doors, and for some reason, the paint on the doors is much more difficult to remove! Had to strip some areas of the walls too, too thick and peeling! From Sunrise - work in progress From Sunrise - work in progress From Sunrise - work in progress From Sunrise - work in progress

Definitely use a 00 steel wool; 4/0 is just for rubbing out final finishes. Any chemical stripper will work optimally at 85 degrees F. Winter I have always found to be too cold and dry for chemical strippers to really work well. If the wood has no sealer underneath, using only chemicals will tend to grind the pigment into the pores. A hot stripper is always more satisfactory because it quickly lifts as much pigment out of the pores as possible. Some people testify that brushing on a coat of shellac and then stripping again will pull more pigment out of the wood, the logic being that the paint will stick to the shellac; I can't verify this legend, but if you find yourself at an impasse, it's probably worth a halfhearted try. Casey

You probably don't need to wet sand the CoverStain as the lead paint that was remaining has been encapsulated at that point. It depends on how picky you want to be in terms of removing every last molecule of the old paint. It also depends on how shiny you finish paint will be. Semi gloss is going to show more imperfections than satin and gloss will show the most so the trim will need to be perfect before priming.

Teresa, I never post here. Rudeness seems to be the M.O. I was raised way better. i did a refresh on my very small galley kitchen. Repainted the cabinets, new hardware, ended up replacing the floor (big leak and mold) in that awful trendy grey wood look tile, and non stone (I used a lighter shade of wood look tile) counters. New appliances (cheap and black). No backsplash (what are those actually for anyway) other than the counter material going up about three inches. All together way less than $10,000. And my "art" comes from generic places too lol. DIYer is so not me. I am good at using my phone. I have an EXCELLENT handyman. Through Home Advisor. I also have used Handy for putting furniture together. i also lived in a very dysfunctional kitchen before my divorce. Raised seven children and entertained for all twenty five years. Parties of well over one hundred. In a very ordinary 1800 sq ft home. I miss every bit of that. I am glad you went ahead with YOUR plan. I hope to see photos soon!