Lots of Stripping

For the last few weeks, I've been working on the stair project. As it was my idea to take the carpet off the stairs, it's my job to get them looking nice. I started out stripping the glue off with wood stripper. Normally it only takes a few minutes for the finish to get soft. This glue is so thick that it takes a minimum of 4 hours for the stripper to work. And even then I think I'm going to have to go over everything again.

The challenge in this project is to keep the stairs usable at all times, as we really do want to use our new upstairs. I'm stripping both the treads and the risers to hopefully get them to a stainable condition.

Here is the pile of old finish and glue from just 3 of the stair steps. I can't imagine how much I'll have at the end.


Meanwhile, Nate has been working on stripping and refinishing the window trim in our bedroom. He'd like to have curtains back on again, rather than multiple layers of poly film. I can't imagine why.

As he was working away, he discovered that the name of the manufacturer was still stamped on the bottom of the sill. Kind of neat to find it still there after all of these years. I guess you don't look at the bottom of a window sill that often.