One thing that really made me fall in love with our little place was the window trim and old pocket shutters, although no longer operational I still saw them as character and something very special about the apartment. I was told by our wall guys (several times) that it would look better covered up. I was pretty set on the fact that we were going to keep them and we were just going to strip the paint off. And all would be right in the world.
WRONG.
Stripping the window trim was the biggest nightmare of all and my biggest mistake for being too sentimental and attached to them. We tried Methalyne Chloride, which is harsh but only took off one layer of paint at a time and would have taken us months to strip into all the groves. We bought the pricey and highly rated Peel Away product. Which left us with a gigantic mess. There was just too much latex, oil and most likely lead paint. We decided it was not worth the health risk or our time to continue any longer, so Christmas Afternoon the trim came off. Of course we had already started painting, so we had to get everything patched up and mudded before we could proceed. This definitely put us behind schedule. I am supremely annoyed with myself for getting too attached to something silly like wood. But the good news is that the pocket shutters are still there, just behind a wall now.
I did manage to knock off a lot of paint off the old gas valve, only to discover more of it still hidden behind the wall after Brandon took off the trim. But its very pretty, it has a tiny star detail on both sides and a beautiful scroll work turnkey.
A mottled mess. They were never going to look quite right. And all of this was a very frustrating process.
As it was Christmas Day, I was with Duke while Brandon took off the trim and was not there to photograph that happy event.
I spent so much time working on the windows and it took Brandon less than 2 hours to take it all off.
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