Monday, March 10, 2008

I give up

That's it, I'm throwing in the towel. The stupid paint refuses to come off the stupid trim! I've tried Citristrip, SoyGel, SoyClean, PeelAway, the heatgun, and when I sand the stuff gums up my sander. I GIVE UP!!!!!!!!! The only thing I haven't tried is Tiny Oak Park Bungalow's suggestion of Zip Strip because of the fumes. But seriously the paint won't come off! There's only two or three layers on the there! What gives?

6 comments:

StuccoHouse said...

The chemicals you are trying are pretty weak. I'd second the suggestion to use Zip Strip; the fumes aren't bad as long as you don't breath them in directly. It also doesn't raise the grain like the products you have been using :-) Good luck!

Jennifer said...

Good luck! That sure is frustrating.

Unknown said...

Is it possibly milk paint? I understand this is extremely difficult to remove and fortunately I haven't come across any of it in my bungalow. Here's a site to look at: http://www.realmilkpaint.com/remover.html

Chris said...

I was wondering if you were still fooling around with the stripping. The key to keeping the the high-test strippers not smelling too much is to not move it around a lot. Put it on, wait (sometimes hours), and then gently take it off with a scraper or putty knife.

Our Little Bungalow said...

Stucco- The zip strip will come out once we can work with the windows open and/or we can get some of this stuff outside. I do have parrots that can't handle the fumes. (Hubs however would love if they would drop over dead.)

Penny- Nope, not milk paint, good suggestion though! Just old stubborn paint.

Oak Park- LOL I will be still be dealing with paint stripping when I hit retirement age. You mean I can't take the drywall thingies and scrape the heck out of it? :-)

Thanks everyone! I'm off to Sherwin Williams tomorrow to buy some Ultra Strip from Back to Nature. (sigh) Really it's the last low fume low chemical one I'm trying.....Really.

Di said...

If the wood wasn't shellacked or varnished originally, the paint will be a b*tch to remove. I'm having the same problem with my replacement wood windows, which were probably painted in the early 90s. I just scrubbed at it with steel wool after coating with stripper. It works, but it's slow. VERY slow.