my stairs are covered in 100 years of lumpy paint. How can I make them look like...

[HamblesHandbag]

this?

the edwardian spindles we have are lovely, and I guess would sand down nicely to be painted white. But how do you get the banister all lovely and wood looking?

Wood it need replacing? or, er, dipping?

and the stairs. I like the look of the dark wooden stairs, maybe plain or maybe with a runner carpet. Would we need to have new stairs made, or can stairs be stripped and stained or something??

Do I need a carpenter or just a decorator?

thanks for any advice.

Only way I know is lots of hard, dirty, dusty work - by you, or by paying someone else, but nobody else will take as much care over your house as you will.

Most of the paint will come off with a hot air gun and scraper

The rest will come off with sanding. Most of it will be by hand. You will need a dust mask, washable overalls and goggles and hat. If the house is furnished and carpeted you will have to empty the hall, stairs and landing. If you can rig up some kind of powerful dust extractor, it will help.

If it is an edwardian house then you can expect some lead paint in there, so a chemical paint stripper will be (less) toxic, and dust extraction even more important. I've seen a vid of someone using a canister vac outside the house, with an extended hose poked through the letterbox.

blumming, heck, that sounds like a hellish - and major - job!

thanks for the advice Piglet, I'll have a word with my decorator.

maybe but there is a more modern idea in

www.mumsnet.com/Talk/property/1386007-original-ornate-fireplace-painted-over-how-to-get-rid-of-the-paint-properly

possibly like this (video included)

www.restexpress.co.uk/acatalog/Peel_Away_1.html?gclid=CIzB9ujG2a0CFVBlfAodDHRPlQ

Go to a really good ironmonger's shop and see what they have in the way of paint remover. IIRC, it is much easier to use a paint remover than to blast/sand, but also a lot more expensive.

Paint remover. Its the only way. Otherwise you will end up with paint dust all over your house and inside yourself and your children.

Paint remover is much better at the detailed bits as well.

that new paste-and-bandage method looks to me far easier and cleaner than the old dab-and-scrape method, and safer for the eyes and skin. The old strippers are quite toxic, and I hear are being taken off the market.

An alternative method is to carefully dismantle the stair parts, apart from the newel posts, and have them dipped. You will probably need a joiner to put it all back together. Don't forget to number the spindles.
When the spindles are removed, it is much easier to strip the stairs.

Sorry for the delayed response, I hadn't realised there were more replies.

Speaking as someone who likes to used to paint glue onto her hands at school, just to peel it off, that peel away stuff looks brilliant! our stairs are nowhere near as intricate as the plasterwork shown in the example vid, so maybe that's a good option.

The decorator is booked for february, so we'll have a chat about how best to approach it.

Thanks.

Peelaway paint remover works really well, i used it on an old 1930's cast iron fireplace that had about 80 years of paint on it. The years of over-painting had completely filled in all of the decorative features of the fireplace.

I wanted to avoid all the sanding dust with 2 young children in the house, especially with the older layers of lead based paint. Peel away comes in a paste form with a blanket that goes over the top once applied - The rest is in the name.

We got ours from a place called 'Wood-Finishes-Direct.com'

Hope it helps.

I've done my stairs - stripped and painted them - it was arduous but I love them now and we don't even have a runner
I used a heat gun, lashings of nitromorse and electric sanders ... It was hard -three storeys but xant have been that bad as am about to do the cellar too!