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February 17, 2009
Restore or Replace?
The doors and moldings in our 1850s townhouse were painted very drab "historical" colors by the prior owners. We cant figure out what type of professional would be able to help us decide if they are actually so historical that they are worth the expense of stripping and staining or if we should just replace them. Is this a job for an architect? Interior designer? Specialty GC? Any help and recommendations would be greatly appreciated.
Comments
Did you just buy your place? You sound pretty unfamiliar with what you have. If the doors and moldings are original and in good shape (regardless of whether they are painted colors you don't like), don't replace them!! Try and educate yourself a bit about what you have. Do any neighbors have similar homes that can give you more background?
Posted by: Schultz at February 16, 2009 4:49 PM
Seems like you'd have to strip small portions of the paint off to see what kind of wood you actually have before deciding what to do with it. Pretty much any wood stripper could do that. Search the archives for recommendations. But get samples stripped in several rooms -- don't just get one patch done and assume you have the same wood throughout the house. The garden and upper floors were often (this is my understanding and the case in my house) built in poplar while the showier parts of the house, the halls and parlor floor for example, were better quality like oak or mahogany. But if you do rip it out (shudder) then at least try to sell/give it away as architectural salvage :)
Posted by: herkimermaid at February 16, 2009 4:49 PM
Replace original moldings? That's crazy.
Your moldings may have been originally painted (for example, with fake wood grain) or they may have been varnished. A little scraping in a corner not likely to be noticed should reveal some clues. If you don't like drab colors, paint them a different color.
Posted by: mopar at February 16, 2009 5:04 PM
Also, news flash: Replacing your moldings will be much more expensive than paying someone to strip them. Plus they will look like shit.
Posted by: mopar at February 16, 2009 5:06 PM
Schultz - correct that we bought the house recently. As to educating ourselves, well that's what I'm trying to do! I'm hoping to find someone to help. The house is unique to the block (and neighborhood), apparently 40 or so years older than most, so neighbors won't be any help. The prior owners of 30 years didn't know much, either. We've dug through the history ourselves, tracing the owners back to the mid 1800s, but couldn't find the original architect.
Herkimermaid - obviously if they are in fact historical doors and moldings we will keep them, but since it would cost over 5 times the cost of replacing them to restore them, we want to make sure we know its worth it because they are in fact rare, historical pieces. If they are not, but are just in the style or whathaveyou, we would replace them with pieces also in that style. Thanks for the advice on trying out different samples on different floors. We have tried a patch upstairs and found a very light colored very soft wood but have not tried on the main floor.
It's just such a sin that anyone would paint wood to begin with. We would love to find someone that could come in, take a look and tell us when they date from and if they are worth the expense of stripping and replacing. A book on historical doors would also be great - they are very thin (1.5 inch thick) four panel doors with the cross panel at least 2/3 down (so the bottom panels are 1/3 the height of the top panels). I haven't been able to find anything like them in the reference works I have consulted so far.
Thanks again, everyone.
Posted by: jack123 at February 16, 2009 5:12 PM
Could you post a pic??? In the earlier periods (say, before the 1900s) to have the money to paint was considered a status symbol.
Martin Senour paints has a great line of historic colors in their Williamsburg collection...
http://www.martinsenour.com/pdf/MSP_Williamsburg.pdf
Posted by: daveinbedstuy at February 16, 2009 5:26 PM
mopar - i'm not sure why you are assuming they are original - I'm looking for someone to help me decide exactly that. Are you looking in my windows!? ;-)
As to expense, stripping and refinishing the doors will be at least double the price of even solid mahogany new doors. I have had several quotes to strip and refinish the moldings at about five times the cost of removing and replacing them. I would love a referral if you have seen different.
I don't think there's any real argument that restoring is more expensive than replacing. My question is if it is worth it in this case - are these historical items worth the cost to preserve. I think everyone can agree it wouldn't be worth restoring a cheap 1950s reno. Any leads on someone who could help me figure that out would be appreciated.
Posted by: jack123 at February 16, 2009 5:30 PM
light colored soft wood= pine.. the doors sound like what i have in my house, common construction from around 1865...i personally prefer the patina of an old door, even if imperfect, to new construction..hers approximately what i mean... http://www.artefacts.ca/images/Stock/doors%20int/lift%20knob%20doors.jpg
Posted by: eman1234 at February 16, 2009 5:41 PM
eman1234 - Thanks so much, and the door in that picture is almost exactly like those in the house. Looking around your website I see you have it dated to the mid 18th century, but you also note that four panels doors are so ubiquitous that they are often hard to date. How were you able to pin down the date on that one? The color on that one is also really close to ours - is that how you found it? Do you know what kind of paint it is? Did you try to strip it? Many thanks for your help. (P.S. I see you are in Canada - do you have a NY presence?)
Posted by: jack123 at February 16, 2009 5:55 PM
the reference is a canadian outfit i use for reference only..im in brooklyn, carroll gardens to be exact...i'll try to dig out some contacts for this kind of thing, since, though i am a contractor, this is not my field..
Posted by: eman1234 at February 16, 2009 6:43 PM
mopar says: Replacing your moldings will be much more expensive than paying someone to strip them.
OP says: since it would cost over 5 times the cost of replacing them to restore them,..
Which is it?
further: It's just such a sin that anyone would paint wood to begin with.
Nah. I say paint them a nice bright color, there's nothing drabber than dark original moldings. You need all the light you can get in a brownstone.
Posted by: cmu at February 16, 2009 7:04 PM
btw.. i have numerous doors in my house which match the description that you posted, some with mortised locks, some with surface mounted locks... stripping these doors is a job for someone other than a homeowner..the paint is old oil based lead loaded stuff and will make you brain damaged if you do it yourself..that is also the drawback about the moldings in your house.. one of my neighbors had everything stripped on the cheap, and when the wife got pregnant, had the house tested for lead..guess what ..it tested off the richter scale ...you have to decide what your options and aims are before you do anything..i would be glad to take a look for free, though as i said, this is not my field..errol832000@yahoo.com
Posted by: eman1234 at February 16, 2009 7:41 PM
call this guy. small outift. the owner knows wood. I've seen old panels he's restored and moldings he's made to replace missing. reasonable. www.thetinkerswagon.com. 347-813-9635.
jason
Posted by: jasonstonestreet at February 16, 2009 9:54 PM
call this guy. small outift. the owner knows wood. I've seen old panels he's restored and moldings he's made to replace missing. reasonable. www.thetinkerswagon.com. 347-813-9635.
jason
Posted by: jasonstonestreet at February 16, 2009 9:54 PM
I'm surprised that you got a quote to strip that is 5x the cost of replacing. I just don't have that in the range of my experience. I would expect the opposite. I guess you are right, you need to talk to more people.
Also, what is the quality of the paint job? If it is a mess, then yes, you will want to strip it. But, if it is well painted and smooth, you don't have to go to the trouble of stripping, you can just paint over it.
Years ago, when we did our house, we sent doors and shutters out to be dip stripped and did all of the moldings ourselves with peel away. It is a paste that you put on the wood and take it off 24 hours later. It does not create dangerous lead dust and has no fumes. We had kids after that and there was no evidence of lead in our house. However, it was a big job, but in our opinion well worth it. What people value about an old home is the original detail. So, unless you are adamantly, aesthetically opposed to what you have, I would try to save it.
Also, in my opinion, there is no sin in painting soft pine. It was not meant to be stained or left "natural". Find paint colors that work for you.
Posted by: Schultz at February 16, 2009 10:13 PM
stripping old painted moldings on location generally runs about $20-25 per linear ft. You can buy new moldings for alot less, even $5 per ft; although unusual profiles, bolection moldings, and compound moldings can cost much more. The real problem is trying to remove the old moldings without damaging the plaster walls. There is cost involved in carefully removing old moldings, and re-installing new molding. Also, new wood moldings are not like the old growth wood moldings you'd find in a 150 year old house. Changing them out should really be a last choice.
Posted by: ParkSlopePS at February 17, 2009 7:35 AM
Schultz is right. If you want to know if these are original moldings take some photos and try here http://www.nylandmarks.org/. If they are original and mostly intact they are defiantly worth restoration.
Posted by: edifice rex at February 17, 2009 8:45 AM
It seems worth it to me to factor in the expense (both to the OP and to the rest of the ecosystem) of throwing out the existing molding.
A whole brownstone's worth of molding could easily be a ton of garbage. Careful demo and a dumpster could cost many thousands of dollars (more if you live in a permity-type neighborhood), and for what?
A landfill is a little bit more full. Great.
Posted by: vanburenproud at February 17, 2009 9:31 AM
OP, someone is taking you for a ride. This is like saying "I don't like the color my walls are painted -- should I repaint them or demolish the room and build another?"
I sincerely doubt even the cheapest, off-the-shelf pine molding at Home Depot plus the cost of installation could be less expensive than stripping your existing molding. Plus, needless to say, it will look wrong and cheap.
What's more, even if you went the Martha Stewart route and had the wood custom-milled to match the profile of your existing molding, you would have to paint it anyway, since the wood won't match your doors, won't be the kind of wood they used back then since it's no longer available, and won't be the quality you want.
It is a misconception that all old houses had unpainted, varnished wood. Some did, some didn't. Wood was often painted in the Colonial era and again in the 1910s. Varnished woodwork was popular from the 1870s through the 1890s. And one house could mix several different kinds of wood, some painted with fake wood grain, some varnished.
If your house has a mix of both, why not strip the wood in the parlor (where the best wood is likely to be) and paint it elsewhere? Off-white woodwork with colored or pastel walls is a popular look at the moment.
Joe Salem is frequently recommended on this forum. Maybe he'll give you a better quote. 718-755-6527.
Lastly, it's not just a question of the expense. If you have something original and it's in good condition, why would you want to replace it with something fake? It's tasteless.
Posted by: mopar at February 17, 2009 2:12 PM
You're getting a lot of good advice here. We just spent about 80 hours to strip 70 linear feet of 100+ year old woodwork in on room, and then turned around and repainted it.
Why? Because the many layers of underlying paint, including cheap latex, would have been a bad base for new paint.
We used oil primer and a light-colored paint from Farrow and Ball for the woodwork and slightly darker paint for the walls and love the look. Very elegant.
Varnished wood is highly overrated, IMO, and replacing old molding with new stock close with to achieve a look similar to what you have will be dangerous to your walls and expensive.
If you have time on your hands, limited funds and be trusted to work with sharp profile scrapers and a tool like the the Silent Paint Remover (infrared), you can do this yourself. With any luck, you will find varnish as the first layer, and your paint, all 20 layers, will come off in one sheet.
Posted by: renomandru at February 17, 2009 2:54 PM
I don't think $20 to $25 per linear ft. is right, it's less than that and probably close to $15.oo shop around, replacing is not cheaper ,it's alot more.
Posted by: rano at February 17, 2009 6:56 PM
Sounds like you have original doors. One cost effective option would be to strip one door and see what type of wood it is. If it is a nice hardwood worth staining/varnishing, do that with all the doors. You can then repaint the moldings a color that you like, so long as they don't already have a very bad paint job (i.e. so long as they are smooth).
Posted by: 1842 at February 18, 2009 2:48 PM
DONT WASTE your time with wood. I have a lot of experience with rooftop gardening, stick to plastic containers - preferably ones that are UV resistant. If you have to make boxes then use plastic wood - there are really nice 100% recycled plastic planks available
Posted by: bruin357 at February 19, 2009 2:46 AM
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