We are taking the wallpaper off our ceiling in the living room. Underneath 3 layers of old style wall paper is a hand painted ceiling. The living room is 31′ x 15′ with a oak beams framing 2 large square surrounded by smaller rectangles. The hand painting is a two color border with a pattern in the corners of the large squares. You can tell that the corner patterns are done by hand because they are irregular.
The base color on the outside seems to be a dull yellow and the base color in the large squares seems to be a faded army fatique green.
After stripping the wallpaper with a steamer I have used a vinegar solution to wash the old glue off. But the colors still look muddy. Do any of you have any suggestions of how I could clean these ceilings up better?
We live in NW Iowa, the house was built between 1890 and 1900.
Thank you for any suggestions.
Replies
Paint or fresco? Some houses had the plaster put on and pigment right after when wet.
http://www.etherhuffer.typepad.com
It's painted. At first I thought it was fresco because the color looked so muted, or below the surface. But I have one small area where the surface is flaking away and it's obvious that the color is one the surface.
Thank you for the response. We have lived in this house for 19 years but have always put off doing the living room because of the volume of work. DW does not do remodeling, plaster dust and all that goes with it real well. But it's got to be done.
The historical ladies around town always want us to do an open house because the outside looks so impressive. But on the inside the owner is tired.
I am a remodeling contractor and the cobbler's kids have no shoes, so projects around here tend to get strung out. Because the living room is such focal point of the house it's hard to close it off for renovations. It's also hard to not be embarrassed by the conditioin it is in.
Right now I have 1/4 of the room divided off with drop clothes, and we are just going to start doing what we can.
We will also be patching the walls, stripping the woodwork and sanding the floors.
Cargin,Search paint restoration
Your house sounds like a gem. Post some pics.Chuck Slive, work, build, ...better with wood
Yes, please post some pictures!Also, you might want to ask over at the Old House Journal forum. Jane Powell might have some answers for you, as she does interior decorating.http://www.oldhousejournal.com/talk/index.shtmlGood luck!
I'll give it a try.
Rich
That is beautiful. It will be a pain to restore I'm sure but it looks well worth it. Are any of the kids into painting or art?
Man, that's seriously gorgeous!
It's worth any amount of labor to preserve that.
Forrest
That is so nice!!!Do you have a local historical society? You should definitely do as much research as you can. You don't want to spend a zillion hours working on it, and have something go wrong, like using the wrong paint which de-bonds from the existing surface or something.
Thanks for the encouragement everyone. I've been working on it all evening, running the steamer and taking off wall paper. I'm too tired to write very much. I am going to be cautious about washing the surface. So far it appears pretty durable. I'll post some more pictures when I get more of it cleaned up.
Rich
google Evergreene Paint Studios. I used to work for them doing plaster restorations. This is exactly the type of thing they would do only on a larger scale like churches, theaters etc. There may be some leading information.
http://www.google.com/search?q=evergreene+paint+studios&ie=utf-8&oe=utf-8&aq=t&rls=org.mozilla:en-US:official&client=firefox-####
I figured out how to send larger pictures. I'll probably post more after working on it today. See larger photos below.
It'd be a shame if you didnt save those ceilings, very cool.
Doug
No please not larger pictures.
Can you upload them as individual jpgs around 80kb in size?
I wanna see 'em too, yahno?SamT
Anyone who doesn't take truth seriously in small matters cannot be trusted in large ones either. [Einstein] Tks, BossHogg.
I'm working on the ceiling now, I'll try to post pictures tonight. it take me too long to figure out this picture thing. I'm 51 you know. I'll have my 15 year old help me.
Rich
Why, heck, yer still a kid!
I'll get my 34yo to help ya.
SamT
Anyone who doesn't take truth seriously in small matters cannot be trusted in large ones either. [Einstein] Tks, BossHogg.
Edited 2/24/2007 6:18 pm by SamT
Hey man, I just learned how to download pics from Adobe!
be a cool thing and cargin unearthed a treasure
View Image
View Image
Wow!
Thanks, rez.SamT
Anyone who doesn't take truth seriously in small matters cannot be trusted in large ones either. [Einstein] Tks, BossHogg.
I.m not sure how to get a thread #.
So I searched the original thread (which I just added to give the update) I found one of your posts and send a reply. That should direct you to the orginal thread.
Rich
Late Victorian-early Edwardian but very typical American. Do try and save it, you'll have to get an artist in to match or a good painter that knows mixing etc. The problem will be proper prep and to do that you may have to lose some of the original, but keep enough so that you can follow the lines.
I did a bank cieling with a very similar design some years ago in Philly and the artists traced the design on a type of hard plastic sheet and then went over the tracings with a pin wheel, pricking holes along the edges of the trace. They then affixed the plastic back in place and gently dusted the holes creating an outline called a "cartoon". They do all this so you can prep the surface correctly, (my job), thus wiping out most of the original design. They had all the paint colors noted.
After painting, they coat the entire cieling with a sealer matt varnish.
I had to do much of my work above the cieling behind the plaster restoring the plaster keys by injecting a capilary-acting type of glue between the plaster and the old wood lath. I had to drill over 3000 holes I calculated.
That type of work gets quite involcved.
I think we are going to clean it up as well as we can and live with the used and crackled look. The ceiling has mildew that I would like to clean up. I cleaned the old glue of with just the steamer and elbow grease. I had to be carefull around the lines and the details. Just gentle rubbing. I got most of the greenish tint off the main body.
18 years ago when we were new in the house I saw one corner of wallpaper was hanging down, DW was out for the night and I started taking down wall paper with just hot water and a 4 " knife. To make a long story short it stayed that way and now that area is a jagged area of a lighter shade that I haven't been able to get the uncovered area to match.
I tried a mild bleach on the ceiling to no effect. Last night after working on it all day I had a mental lapse and I tried a solution of TSP (mixed it too strong) and it will burn right through the paint. I stayed away from the details, but I knew I had to quit for a while. I just about screwed it up bad. After scrubbing all day with just minor results you get impatient. And there is so much left to do on the ceiling. My walls are bad, the woodwork has alot of paint spills on it and the woodwork exposed to the sun is begging to be stripped and the floor needs to be refinished. This room needs a crew with some serious time to burn. I have to make it look good with least amount of effort. Problem is I always find a way to expand a project.
Pretty soon work will pick up and I won't have the time to put into it. We have to live in this house. I'm a contractor that means #1 I don't have the money hire the work done #2 I don't let other people touch my stuff. It's a guy thing.
Your approach sounds like a good one. It's probably what I would do. I would paint on a matt sealer like I mentioned though.
What is a matt sealer? Even though I am weeks away from needing it, do you have a brand name?
And will somebody please tell me how I should clean this ceiling before I screw it up.
What is a matt sealer
Artist supply. Seals over soft surfaces and colors.SamT
Anyone who doesn't take truth seriously in small matters cannot be trusted in large ones either. [Einstein] Tks, BossHogg.
I think it looks good as is. But I like the look of used and decayed finishes. Anyone can have a new looking ceiling, but yours is a one of a kind that is impossible to duplicate.
Hey, a vote.
Yes, let the ceiling be and enjoy the aged patina while you put the effort into the floor and woodwork.
That'll frame the room the the picture of the ceiling being the jazz.
be full of jazz:o)
That is a really great find. I am not a paint conservator but I know you should be careful about what and how you clean off the residue. For instance I would be concerned about the acidity of the vinegar attacking certain pigments. You need to neutralize the PH after you have striped off the glue. I highly recommend getting the advice of a professional conservator.
Here is a bunch of reading material, and contacts. Please call some of them. I am sure they will be happy to point you in the right direction.
http://aic.stanford.edu/
http://www.artsmia.org/restoration-online/guercino/faq.cfm
http://www.traditional-building.com/tbdb447.htm
http://www.buildingconservation.com/articles/chinesehouse/chinesehouse.htm
I don't have time to look at these this morning but I will look at them this afternoon.
I've looked up most of the web sites suggested by you generous folks. Most seem are strong on promoting the company and weak on actual techinque.
I have done search on this site and Old House Journal for paint restoration and fresco restoration. And I haven't found much.
I admit I am not good and wiling away time in front of a computer screen doing searches. I would much rather do manual labor. I am by nature a shot 1st and ask questions later type of guy, but I have a feeling that is going to get me into trouble here.
Thanks for the help everyone. After church I will try to post new pics.
Rich
Edited 2/25/2007 10:58 am ET by cargin
Could you show us a pic of the outside of the house?
I bet if you call the folfs at Stanford they would be happy to give you some free advice or at least point you in the right direction.
Here are some pics. These are pictures of the outside and the front entry. We redid the front entry, stairway and upstair hallwayabout 5-6 years ago. The stripping job from hell.
In the outside pic you can see that we have curved soffits throughout. Very unusal. The front porch was added in the 1920's I think. The attic, not bedroom and soffits indicate (seams) that the right hand gable was extended about 6'. I believe their was a open 2nd story balcony there
Edited 2/25/2007 5:52 pm ET by cargin
View Image
HOLY TOLEDO!!!Stunning, just stunning staircase.Can I just rip out my nose & replace it with a temporary model until this cold is gone?
Hey, not to hijack the thread but just a small detour.
Plantlust in Chicago needs some old high baseboard for her house there. Anyone able to help out here?
be here and there
rez
Whats it look like?
Needs baseboard molding at least 6 inches in height for an upstairs in a 1926 house. The downstairs baseboard is pine (honey-red under paint) w/a very simple profile.
Seeking something similar in natural wood preferably or possibly can remove paint.
Cargin,
Is it possible for you to post the pics in a jpeg format as the pdf will make it difficult for posters on dial up to view them.
Cheers
Edited 2/25/2007 4:43 pm ET by rez
I would love to. What's jpeg? I just plugged in the camera and Adobe came up. It created a slide show. I had a hard time saving the pictures to a file. It didn't give me an save option in File. I e-mailed them to meyself and then saved them to a file. Very time consuming.
Ok they are in jpeg in Adobe but after I e-mailed them they are in that other format. I'll keep looking and trying.
I can word process and work with Excel, but this photo stuff is new ground for me.
Edited 2/25/2007 5:39 pm ET by cargin
The camera takes jpeg pictures.
Adobe is running on your computor. When you plug in the camera, the computor, tells Adobe, "There's the camera, do your thing."
I think:
If you close Adobe when it opens; double click on "My Computor"; Browse to the camera and find a folder on the camera that holds all the jpegs; copy that folder to "My Documents", "My Pictures", or wherever.
To resize those pictures to about 640x480 or 50k -80k bytes, download Irfanview. It's free.SamT
Anyone who doesn't take truth seriously in small matters cannot be trusted in large ones either. [Einstein] Tks, BossHogg.
Somehow rez resized them on this site.
I don't know how.
I didn't either till I had a window pop up that said to open the picture task file and I saw and export line for the pics.
I'm thinking there is probably a way to save the pics in your camera to jpeg automatically and then bypass the pdf file thingy directly thus saving the time of sizing and resizing the photos.
I'm still a novice stumbling my way thru the fog of technology or I'd try to assist you.
More pics. The hole in the wall is the LR from the other side of the drop cloth. The hole in the wall is where I have accessed the broken sliding door hardware. Door is 7' 5" x 48". The plate that attachs to the top of the door was broken (had been repaired) my replacement piece broke and now the roller (scissor type) is broken. Anyway very ugly. It's a long afternoon with 2.5" #14 straight drive screws and an offset screwdriver to replace that plate.
Some of the pics are of the ceiling before I cleaned with the steamer. You can see the line. It's hard to clean very aggressively around the details. the pin stipping is very durable but the outside green is very fragile. There is also a very fine yellow pin stripe. Very faint. The colors are so muted it will be hard to redo.
Man that staircase is awesome. If you decide to repaint the ceiling to bring back the colors I would suggest leaving a corner untouched as a base reference.
BTW the pink flamingo is a great historic touch.
Here are some more pics.
The NE light area is where the ceiling was exposed for 18 years. Even after washing it doesn't blend in.
The south rectangle pic shows what the ceiling looks like when the wall paper first comes off. That white repair stuff washes way with the steamer wash.
I don't know if Diff would work, but it is made for removing wallpaper. Available almost anywhere paint products are sold.
Back in Feb. I came to BT seeking advice on cleaning my ceiling. Now I am back with an update. Below I posted some pics of the completed project.
My big concern at the time was cleaning the ceiling without destroying it. (Start at the beginning of the thread and you will see how desperate and tired I was.) I finally called a paint store owner in Sioux City that is on the AM talker every day (kind of a Richard Simmons of decorating) and he connected me with a man who has done several of these ceilings. He told me I should use Borax (20 mule team in the laundry aisle) to clean the ceiling.
I used 2 buckets one with clean water and one with 1/2 cup of borax. Then a third bucket with a dry borax and just enough water to form a slurry. My 21 year old son and myself worked together each taking a 2' x 2' square. We used grout sponges on the main area and toothbrushes around the details. After we each did a 2 x 2 square then we would change the water.
My local source and the state preservationists thought this was soot from gas lanterns. It took us 2 days to remove the wallpaper and 2 days to wash the ceiling. My son would only work until supper (slacker) but I would usually put in a couple of hours in the evening. I then sealed the ceiling with clear shellac.
I am going to post this and then come back with the rest of the story.
Wonderful!Before I finished my house, wishing to earn ten or twelve dollars by some honest and agreeable method, in order to meet my unusual expenses, I planted about two acres and a half of light and sandy soil near it chiefly with beans, but also a small part with potatoes, corn, peas, and turnips. The whole lot contains eleven acres, mostly growing up to pines and hickories, and was sold the preceding season for eight dollars and eight cents an acre.-Thoreau's Walden
Wow! I just can't congratulate you enough on that level of preservation.
Super, super, super.
Forrest - wish we had painted ceilings!
You DO have painted ceilings, unless they're wood planks, or bare drywall (like some of mine).
Just not painted like that .
<G>
Yep - I meant "antique".
Havin to live with this -View Image
Forrest - suffering through with my own work
Edited 7/8/2007 9:51 pm by McDesign
The rest of the story. I was real leary of starting this project. The walls all had loose plaster (really bad), the wood work had several decades of sloppy painters, the floors needed to be refinished and we had already been out of work for a month.
You can see my 18 year old son in a wheelchair in one of the photos. He has CP. The LR is where he receives physical therapy daily, listens to books, watches TV and otherwise holds court. A lady is in the house until 9:30 in the morning doing range of motion exercises so I had to take measures to limit the construction until he went to school.
While we were doing the ceiling we had a really good blizzard, 14" of snow and 2 days of howling wind. We did alot of shoveling for ourselves and little old ladies around town.
We washed the beams with Murphy's oil soap and then used wipe on poly on them. They were really dirty and they came out alot lighter in color. One of my fears about stripping the woodwork was that the lower stuff wouldn't match the beams, and I really didn't want to strip those beams. They match pretty well.
Once we got the ceiling done we started on the walls. We took off the picture molding, and stripped it. The loose spots on the walls we secured with SR screws and replaced some areas with SR. We did our hurry up method of wall repair. Which is feather it out with another coat, don't sand and then spray and pray. It turned out great.
Then we stripped the wood work. My wife even got in there and helped with this part. She was a real trooper. (She doesn't do construction well) After a week or 2 of stripping (lost track of time) we sprayed the woodwork with poly.
Then we started on the floors. We stripped the floors 1st, with remover. Then we washed the floor with oxylic acid (wood bleach). They still looked dirty even after stripper and sanding. We used the orbital sander from Lowes. It's not real aggressive but it did a nice job and almost no dust.
It was during the stripping that I started the house on fire. I was stripping next to a floor outlet and I got sloppy and the next thing I know the whole corner was on fire, my rubber gloves were on fire and so was my container of stripper. The whole family was in the room along with a friend and suddenly the room was filled with black toxic smoke. After that I turned the breaker off. Nothing was serious damaged.
Before varnishing the floor we covered it and painted the walls, then we put about 5 coats on the floor. The whole process took us 5 weeks working 6 days a week. Work started to come in after that and now we are very glad we did the project. My wife is glad that I finally finished a project. ( Base shoe is not on yet but it is 1 1/4" tall so I will have to make it.)
Thanks for all the ideas and encouragement. The encouragement kept me going.
Cargin
Well you should be very proud of yourself. You guys did great!
No better feeling then preserving something like that.
Well done, not the fire but the other parts. Glad the work started back up as well.
Doug
Edited 7/9/2007 12:02 am ET by DougU
It sounds like you're being a true caretaker of your old house.
Everything looks great.
I forgot to mention some of the details. On the picture of detail #1 the flowers are brown, on #2 the flowers are blue. Each corner has a different color combination.
On the close up of the green line. If you look real close you can see a pencil thin green line along side of the yellow line. You can see it from below unless you are looking for it, but it is a very fine detail that I noticed when I was cleaning.
I'm not gonna show my wife that pic.
I don't need to be suffering like that.
Beautiful work.
Great job, beautiful house. Mike
Trust in God, but row away from the rocks.
That must have exceeded your wildest espectations! From looking at your pics in February i never would have imagined you could bring it back to that clarity. What an accomplishment in a very short time!
Congratulations to you for undertaking this work of love. Most people just paint over the problem!
Bob Chapman