I remember the craze, in the 1980s, to strip every old piece of furniture to "expose the beautiful wood grain." And you'd see pieces in the antiques shows/shops with these crazy grains, mismatched woods, etc. My mom always said, "the guy who made this would be beside himself to see his ingenious usage of scrap wood exposed like this. If he thought you were going to stain it, he'd have at least made sure to use the same species of wood, and he'd have hidden the crazy grain on the shelf or in the back." Oh yes! & I, personally, think the appearance of old wood rarely benefits from application of poly. When I rebuilt a pantry window (1913 house) I found the casing was painted quarter-sawn oak. I'm sure it was always painted - and that much of the house was trimmed with scrap wood. That window remains uncased while I do other things. I haven't uncovered the other casing to confirm my scrap-wood theory. If it's not all nice 1/4-sawn I'll find somewhere else to use that and put something new (paintable) on the window. My first experience stripping paint was in the 1950's, as a child. My mother had an impulse to strip all the oak woodwork in her 1911 house and, as always, enlisted the passel of kids to help. We used stryp-eze - the harshest stuff almost - and no masks or gloves. We did a staircase, 8-10 double hung windows, some doorways. It's not something I would recommend, obviously, the use of the kids (or stryp-eze) but it's an indication that stripping paint is not rocket science. In her next house mom stripped '30's era "blonding" from a whole lot more oak woodwork, without help from any kids but this time she wore gloves and used a LYE solution & a WIRE BRUSH. (Blonding involves grain filler, I believe.) It was, for some reason, her habit to stain wood without any further finish and that made for an easier job - at least one that required less finesse and skill. So, besides self-indulgently remembering a couple of stories, my point is that it's tedious and annoying to strip paint but it doesn't require that much skill and it can easily be diy.

We used 17" x 38" porcelain tiles, straight joint pattern, in our master bathroom with no lippage. We used 8 " x 24" and 8" x 48" porcelain wood look tiles, in a random pattern, in our guest house, with no lippage. All have small grout lines. The common elements were top quality tiles with no bowing, a mortar bed installation and paying up for very good tile installers who take pride in their work and take the time to do it right the first time.

In a real craftsman bungalow I'd start replacing all of the miscellaneous woodwork with appropriate quartersawn white oak. Yes it will be a big project, but you'll end up with something wonderful. Stripping oak is a PITA unless it was finished with shellac or similar first because the paint gets into the grain and you end up spending a long time with a wire brush and solvent getting it out. If the trim is just made up of flat boards it might be easier to just replace, or take them down, strip as much paint as you can and then run them through a drum sander. (you can take the opportunity to insulate around the windows when you have the trim off) Our new house/addition is in an English Arts and Crafts inspired style. I incorporated a fairly elaborate curse on anyone who paints the cherry woodwork I installed.

Flexbone is the superior product for most situations that truly need uncoupling. But, the whole project needs to be deconstructed and examined as to the actual needs of the job site. Are you looking for crack isolation? Waterproofing? Exactly what conditions are prompting this unanswerable question in a vacuum?