Being a paint contractor I deal with lead all the time. I think people do get carried away with the dangers of lead. Im sure your walls and ceiling where originally painted with lead paint, as well as your exterior siding. As long as you have a layer or in your case multiple layers of paint covering the lead base layer, it is contained at that point. It really cant hurt anything at that point. If it was me I would replace all the trim just because its a pretty easy fix considering. That way you wont have to worry about that part again. It will also look a lot better. The MDF baseboard works good, and paints well if your gonna paint it, and is rather inexpensive. Good luck!

Hi, have to ask advice in this same line. Built last summer, have clear pine baseboard and trim I've been finishing (some natural, some with a touch of Minwax Honey Maple gel where window jambs were turning dark with conditioner, sill was light so touched with honey to blend in). LOVE it with my Navajo White and also with Thornton Sage and Antique Jade walls. Really goes with everything. Here's the problem - installing Brazilian Cherry in dining room next week, open to foyer (dark green tile) and stairs (oak tread with linseed oil/beeswax, unfinished pine risers). What do I do with trim and baseboards (1 long wall from dining to front door) to make it look good with cherry floors (will darken with age) and oak stairs/furniture? I haven't even thought about shoe moulding - but my uncle has lots of nice oak left over from his house. Too much with pine base and cherry floor? Here are some pics. Thanks! Here is a link that might be useful: Snapfish floor pics

jillian, a couple of things: The shower pan is "the floor" of your shower. There should be a waterproofing membrane of some sort under the tile, and it's a code requirement that the waterproof membrane be sloped towards the drain between 1/4" per foot and 1/2" per foot. Now, I'm not talking about the tile itself, which should also be sloped to the drain. In addition to the tile being sloped, the waterproofing membrane needs to be sloped as well. What often happens is installers will pace the membrane flat on the subfloor, then put a sloped layer of what we call "deck mud" on top of the membrane. Nothing at all wrong with deck mud. It's a sand and cement mixture that is fairly porous, so water can percolate through it. Water WILL get past the floor tile and grout. Grout is porous. The water then gets in to the deck mud, just as it is supposed to. It percolates down through the deck mud until it hits the membrane, just as it is supposed to. Once it hits the sloped membrane, the water flows down hill towards the drain and goes out the drain by what we call "weep holes". Weep holes are small passages built into the drain to allow the water to escape the deck mud and eventually go down the drain. Just as it is supposed to! With a sloped membrane, the deck mud may be moist, but it won't be overly saturated and hold water. Now, if your installer put the shower pan membrane flat on the subfloor, when water percolates through the deck mud, it hits the flat membrane and simply sits there. The mud becomes fully saturated. If the bottom edge of the cement board on the walls was covered by deck mud, then the saturated deck mud can wet the wall board, and moisture can slowly wick up the walls, behind the tile. Because it is becoming wet from behind, mold or discoloration can build up BEHIND the glaze. I think one of the nastiest things to do in tiling, or with tile remediation, is to break up and demolish a saturated deck mud shower pan. They can be absolutely nasty. There's primordial ooze in that nasty mud. Anyhow, I tried to give a "nutshell" explanation, my nutshells seem to drag on for a bit. But hopefully this will allow you to better understand a potential issue with your shower. I'm not saying that IS what is wrong, but it's a common issue that presents symptoms similar to the ones you are seeing. Good luck getting it rectified.

We are in this process, doing room by room, we have wood casement windows also, my husband re-did the moldings with a bit larger thicker molding, which we painted white ourselves and installed. But, we left one of the rooms moldings along the floor in place and sanded, because we had upgraded it to thicker when we put wood flooring in that room, so it was stained to match. So we sanded it a bit, primed and painted it while it stayed on the wall, that was more trouble than it was worth and when you get down near it, you can tell, it’s not as smooth and nice and I was very careful to do it right. In my opinion, you are better off replacing it than trying to paint it.