Sunday, January 29, 2006

The void being filled


As you can see at left, I finally was able to satisfy my need for removing paint from wood. As I stood heat gun in left hand, scraper in right hand, feeling the burn in my forearms after a few hours, I thought to myself,"I missed.......this???"

I tarped off the room and had a fan blowing the air out to keep the fumes down, but I didn't wear a dust mask. Therefore, last night I kept smelling melting paint even though the work was long over with. My eyes got a little irritated too, but not bad.

But, I did manage to expose some nice oak! It adds so much definition to the room. The colors underneath the layers of whitish paint were in this order going back in time: lilac, baby blue, a dullish green, yellow, tan, and then finally and blessedly: shellac. God bless shellac for its protective barrier.


The stickers to the left are on the door in the den that leads to the basement. They are on the inside facing the basement. We think they are kind of interesting and plan to keep them when we clean up the door. We have no idea how old they are. They look kind of old.

I just now googled "The Culpeper Minute Men" to see if I could find some info and lo and behold I did. Culpeper is evidently a very historic place in Virginia and their militia were called "The Culpeper Minute Men." The top sticker is a replica of their flag. They were attached to the First Virginia Regiment, led by Colonel Patrick Henry, who is famous for his statement, "Give me liberty or give me death!" One of their members, John Jameson was instrumental in exposing Benedict Arnold, whom we've all heard of.

Replicas of this flag are sold on a number of sites on the web.
Interesting.....

4 comments:

Greg said...

Yea! You’re back at it. I know what you mean when you ask, “why this is a good thing”. Getting things accomplished is great, but the actual work…well, it sometimes leaves a bit to be desired. The stickers are cool. I wonder how old they are?

Gary said...

Yeah, I've been stripping wood this weekend too. More windows. There is a 17th century English flag of a man with a sword in one hand and his "member" in the other. The slogan says "Ready with either weapon."

StuccoHouse said...

I'll bet those stickers are from the Bicentennial. I think the Culpeper flag is circa 1775 (wow, that tour I took when I was out in Philly really stuck), but seeing as how stickers were probably not the rage then...I'm guessing 1975.

christine said...

It's looking nice. Gotta love heat guns! Actually it's kind of a love/hate thing isn't it.