Saving the Unpainted Wood Trim

This house is our 23rd project - and yet it's the first home we've renovated that has the original wood trim. I am determined to keep the original woodwork, despite constant naysayers from the team 😂 (once again, they think I'm crazy!).  And in some respects they're right - there are a lot of challenges to make that happen. 

First challenge - a lot of the existing woodwork has these globs of shellac beaded over it.  I'm not sure what the cause of that is, but I read that Denatured Alcohol will melt it away and decided to give it a try. 

It's worked really well!  After I clean up the old bumpy finish it, I re-shellac it.  It looks fabulous, like brand new!  But it's a huge amount of work, that I can only do when the guys aren't around creating dust.  So this is a slow, slow process.

Freshly shellacked trim 

But look how great the original trim looks when we install it on the updated walls!  It instantly gives off that vintage vibe!

This baseboard has been refinished and looks fabulous!

And I love how the original trim goes so well with the new cabinetry.

Second challenge - the windows. We are replacing all of the windows, but I want to keep wood interiors.  I found these beautiful windows from Matthews Brothers (and they're made in Maine!).  They are vinyl (aka no maintenance on the outside) but have wood trim on the interior.  Best of all, they're copied after antique style windows with divided lights on the interior and exterior.  I absolutely love them, but I have to stain and poly each and every one of them, which is taking lots of time and energy.

One sash down.....lots to go!

Doesn't this new window look great? 

These warm wood tones are beautiful

Third challenge - the Sunroom.  Since this is a totally new space, it needs additional trim that doesn't exist.  There isn't enough of the old trim from the walls we removed to do the whole room. So we're trying to finish new wood to look like the old.  

So far, so good.  The new fir looks similar to the 100 year old wood.  So now, I'm frantically trying to stay a step ahead of the guys by staining and sealing the trim as quickly as possible!  It takes me about 48 hours to stain and seal a batch of woodwork.  It takes them about 48 minutes to install it.  So I've got a lot of catching up to do!

New fir beadboard for the powder room

 

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