As we push on completing small projects within the house, we turned our attention to the built in shutters.  After refinishing only one half of a set of double doors, it became apparent that we can’t refinish all the doors and shutters ourselves so we began looking around for companies that do it for you.

So a few weeks ago we headed to New Jersey to visit Dip N’ Strip.  No, it is not a “gentleman’s club,” it is a company that strips paint.

We decided that we would strip a set of parlor floor shutters to see what condition they were in under all that technicolor paint (you recall the red and blue fireplace mantle) and to help us decide whether the others are worth doing as well.

Parlor Floor Shutters – Before

Dip N’ Strip is a family owned company located in Hackensack, New Jersey–less than an hour’s drive from New York City.  They can strip wood, cast iron and metal items including: doors, furniture, fireplace mantels, radiators, garden furniture, and architectural elements like molding, medallions and cornices.  The owner, Jim, told us that he gets a lot of business from folks renovating old brownstones in NYC who want to restore old elements rather than replace them.

In our heads we had envisioned that dipping would mean that the shutter is dipped in a solution and pulled out and ta da!, a paint free shutter.

In reality, it is much more work.  The shutter is immersed in a giant tub of paint stripper solution for several hours after which they use scrapers and special scrub brushes to scrape the paint free from the surface.

Once the paint is removed, the item gets moved to a giant vat of hot water where it soaks to remove all of the solution’s residue and is taken out and left to dry.

Here are the after results:

We were very pleased with the outcome.  The shutters will look great once we put a nice new coat of paint on them (the wood is not really in good enough shape to just stain it).  The service at Dip N’ Strip was great and the staff was knowledgeable and courteous.  The shutters were available for pick up after only a week.  We would definitely use them again.

In fact the area around Dip N’ Strip had a bunch of remodeling supply companies that would be worth checking out.  Curious to see if granite countertops are cheaper in Jersey than NYC.

Later we will be doing some cost comparisons between stripping and restoring trim and molding work versus replacing it.  We would like to keep as much original detail in the house as possible but later as we move walls, some of it will likely be damaged beyond reasonable repair and some of it is already damaged with nail holes, dents, and of course endless coats of paint.

Dip N’ Strip generously stripped a panel for free and we paid for the other.

You may be wondering why you haven’t heard from us in a while (or maybe you haven’t–it’s OK).  It’s because we have been busy trying to get our Alt 1 paperwork filed with the Department of Buildings so we can start demolishing the old extension and putting in the new. It has been a stressful 3 weeks. The renovation roller coaster is in full effect.

You may recall that we were waiting for the results of the Letter of No Objection application that was filed by the sellers.  It was rejected by the DOB–allegedly.  The most frustrating part is that we don’t exactly know why because we did not file it or receive the results even though it pertains to our property.

So now we have to go through the costly process of getting a new Certificate of Occupancy because the DOB does not recognize our house as a legal 2 family even though the Finance department has had no problem collecting the taxes for the 2 residences over the years.

Filing is a difficult process and basically requires you to hire a person called an expeditor to help you because the process is so confusing that the lay person could never do it on their own.  Expeditors are basically building code experts.

In our case, we hired all our providers a la carte.  Some people hire design/build firms and now I get why.  These firms have the architect, structural engineer, contractor and expeditor all in one package so you, as a home owner, don’t have to negotiate and coordinate all of them as you do if you hire them individually as we did.  Of course design/build firms are usually much more expensive too.

The Tests

When we thought we had everything ready to file–guess what, we still had the asbestos test to do.  This required taking samples of all the areas of the house that will be demolished, sending them to a lab and then of course waiting several days for results. Ahhhh… another week of delays.

Do you see that hair sticking out of the side of the plaster in the photo below?  It is horse hair that they commonly used to mix in with the plaster compound.  Nineteenth century horses did not have it easy.

On the upside we were lucky and no asbestos was found. This would have meant a big abatement bill to get rid of it. Instead we’ll have a normal demolition cost.

Once the results came in our team pulled together about 10 forms(we had already done the pit and soil tests) with various government looking acronym/number combination names such as TR1, TR4, EF1, PW1, PW1A, PW1B, and ST1. This packet looked just like a TurboTax generated income tax return. We sign some, our architect signs some, our engineer signs some others, we write some checks, it all goes to the expediter and viola… it’s finally filed!

TIP:  Don’t buy a house that needs major renovations unless your marriage is on solid footing–you will be arguing constantly!  Seriously, just deciding whether to put in a ceiling fan can take a whole evening’s discussion.

When we first started this blog we talked about how it felt like a roller coaster ride, well it’s been upside down lately and let’s face it–we haven’t even started.

One of the parlor floor fireplaces

When looking for a brownstone, fireplaces were on our list of must-have features so we were happy when we saw that our house had three.   We pictured long cold winter nights sitting by a cozy fire.  That was until our bubble burst and we learned (after we made an offer of course) that they were actually not wood burning fireplaces at all but just heating vents that channeled the heat from the once-coal burning heater in the basement.  Easy come, easy go.  We thought, they may not work (without an expensive conversion) but at least they can look nice.  We speculated that there may be marble under all that paint but a contractor looked at them and guessed they were some sort of cement or plaster.

Sigh.  We thought we would strip the paint from them anyway and see what they looked like.  Since they appeared to have several coats of paint of dubious age, to be safe, we used a product specifically designed to remove lead paint called Lead Out (for instructions on how to use Lead Out see our previous post).

Learning from our last experience, (and that is what this blog is all about) we applied a thick coat to the entire fireplace.  The gel started to bubble after a short time.   As the paint started to crack we could see that one of the layers of paint was a royal blue.  Who would paint a fireplace a bright blue?  We recalled the sellers telling us that at some point the two teenage boys in the family had resided in this room in what would have been the 70’s and we think they might be the culprits.

When it was time to remove the Lead Out™, we used a plastic scraper so we would not scratch the surface.  I have to say, in the areas where the gel was applied thickly, the paint came off like butter.  Low and behold, what is that we see?  Marble!  After scraping off the paint we took a wet cloth and wiped it down.  This removed any of the remaining solution and really got in the nooks and crannies well.  Then we followed with Franmar’s EMERGE™ degreaser  and a wet cloth to remove any sticky residue.

REDRUM!

As the gel continued to work its magic you could see that the center piece had actually been painted a bright red.  As the solution continued to work you could see the red emerging through the white.  If I was into the supernatural, I would say that it looked like it was bleeding.  Note to self—think up a far-fetched story about this house being possessed and make a few million dollars off the book and the movie.

The center grate on the fireplace is made of metal.  The piece that surrounds that is not marble and it is much harder to remove the paint.  We think it is either wood (which we would need to replace if we refurbished it to a working fireplace) or hopefully metal.  These pieces pop out and it should be easier to get the paint off of them if we can lay them flat and coat the gel on thickly.  A note of caution, be careful what you get this solution on.  Although it is made from soy, it is powerful.  Some of it got on the linoleum and it completely stripped it down to its clear plastic bottom layer, ditto for wood floors.