If you are considering stripping paint from a door or a door frame, please reconsider. It must be one of the most frustrating, horrible, tortures you could willingly expose yourself to. I love DIY projects, I love to paint, venetian plaster, special finish walls. I am just as happy putting together furniture or fixing small things around the house. I'm not afraid to get my hands dirty, In fact when we first bought our current apartment I was most excited about steaming off the wall paper in one room. Well ok, I was most excited about having two bathrooms, but the wall paper stripping was a close second. That was a messy job, but I got to rent a steamer and of course wanted to get the whole room finished in one weekend so that I didn't have to pay any extra for the equipment rental. It was challenging, but satisfying.
Almásy: "Every night I cut out my heart. But in the morning it was full again." from The English Patient.
The paint stripping is one thousand percent more difficult and only about 1/10th as satisfying. Because even if I am able to get nice solid chunks or sheets of paint off, there are crevices especially around the door frame that laugh at my sweaty brow, cramped hand and well worn six in one tool. Bits of paint layered in these crevices are almost impossible to remove. They taunt me, haunt my dreams and have just about beaten me. At the end of a few hours of working on this, I make a vow to just paint over everything the next day, that no one will notice and I can finally move on to finish painting the foyer. But the next morning I have just enough confidence (or foolishness) to believe I can do a little better and once again attack the paint first in a slow methodical way, then as time passes and I get tired and/or sore, my scrapping becomes frantic and half hazard and I don't believe It will ever end. To be honest I am almost finished, but the torture is that I've been almost finished for a few weeks now. One day I'll be finished, and one day I'll die, it will be interesting is to see which comes first.
If you still want to strip paint, here are some tips:
1. Use the paste version of paint stripper, I used 3M Safest Stripper (Semi-Paste) and also Back To Nature, Ready Strip.
2. Use Plastic wrap to cover the stripper, especially if you plan to let it set overnight. Try a humidifyer to keep the area from drying out completely.
3. Forget you ever thought about stripping the door or door frame and just get on with your life.
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