u/Leafy-Greenbrier

I need to paint just about every service of a 2000 square-foot house DIY. It’s over 100 years old. I haven’t tested for Lead, but I’m sure it’s there. before I get painting I will test. But I’m trying to come up with a rough game plan.

Some of the walls are painted with glossy paint over textured wallpaper. A lot of the paint and wallpaper is either chipping or peeling or bubbling out. The very base of the wall is plaster not drywall. All of the wood trim, windows and doors are painted.

Before I started thinking about Lead, my thoughts were to use BIN primer i’m just about every surface after pulling and scraping any loose bits off. There’s also some interesting artwork consisting of flat glass marbles hot glue glued to plaster walls that needs to come down . So there’s gonna be quite a bit of damage to that surface. My hope was that with a shellac base it wouldn’t cause the wallpaper to swell and peel more.

After thinking about lead, I looked at the encapsulating primers, but they all seem to be water-based.

Can I make a primer/ primer/ paint sandwich? Using the bin over the base and then lead guard over that to lock everything in and interior paint on top? Or is there another product I just haven’t come across yet that would do a better job for both?

The first picture is a completed job from a local licensed plumber. I told him I wanted to put a stacked washer dryer in a spot that already had water and drain. The second picture is what I had before they got here .

They’re not coming back. If this is good work done by a reputable business I just need to get over myself and commit to DIY.

I always think it’ll be less of a headache cause I won’t have to worry about the job being botched if I hire somebody. And it might even be cheaper because they’ll know what they’re doing so they won’t have to buy the same supplies twice when they mess up. So far the only one I’ve hired to do any work that hasn’t given me gray hairs is the company that put the new roof on the house.

My husband and I purchased a 1910 house earlier this year. We love her! She was built in a railroad town and the vibe I get is that originally she was for some kind of middle manager. Not a rich person. Not a poor person.

There’s a lot of work to be done and we’re trying to not necessarily do a full restoration but make decisions grounded in what the house looks like when she was new.

So there’s a lot of nice molding and I can see where the picture rails were. two-story three bedroom house. But no marble and no fancy carvings. Absolutely fabulous foundation! But definitely no live in servant quarters.

I’m having trouble finding original reference photos/drawings for houses around that time that weren’t wealthy show pieces. Any tips on where to look? I’d love to get some actual print books so I could flip through it versus endlessly scrolling online photos.

Two spots in my new old house, tested positive for a low amount of asbestos. Both around the chimney.

I had hired someone to do work here and they made the world’s most awful mess. I think they sanded it with a palm sander and then sprayed it with aerosol primer? And that’s probably not even the worst thing they did.

Anyway, I don’t really feel comfortable having anyone else come in to work on the place. So my husband and I will be doing it ourselves.

Our plans are to use respirators and disposable bunny suits. Keep everything wet and once we get all the mess cleaned up probably just encapsulated it.

Any advice?

I sent some samples in for testing for my new old house. Built in West Virginia, Virginia in 1911 maybe.

The sample from Keith’s room was something gooped onto an old chimney on the second floor .

The second great room I believe is a patch on plaster near the same chimney on the first floor.

We’re doing the work on the house ourselves for the most part. It had been shut up for a while so we were treating most of the rooms as though they had hantavirus. Spray bottles of water with a little bit of fabulous so in it and n95 masks.

Should we switch it up to in 100 respirators? We’re doing what we can to keep the dust down. Our plan has been to repair the existing plaster. Does that still sound like a good idea?

A house my husband and I are looking at seems to have had some DIY electrical done. What do you folks think about this breaker box?

Helgromite, “Black Puma”, and “The Bluestone Beast”

I was hoping to see cryptids on a recent trip to West Virginia. No luck but I sent these photos to my family so they wouldn’t be disappointed.

First is a Dobson fly or adult form of a helgromite. Females have smaller pinchers and will pinch if provoked. Males have larger pinchers but can’t / don’t pinch. This one was maybe 4inches long.

Second is a large black house cat behind a McDonald’s. Very ferocious.

Third is a weird downed tree stuck in the shallows near Bluestone Dam. Or is it…

Looking for advice for my in-laws

Two days ago, the HVAC company sent a guy to do a “six month inspection” on their unit. Basically they send someone out twice a year to try and sell additional services.

He screwed around in the attic for about 45 minutes, then went outside and screwed around for another 45 minutes and then there was a huge pop and the hvac went out . When my father-in-law asked him what was up he said I don’t know. I think you need an electrician and there’s nobody on call overnight and just left.

All night the power in the house was throbbing. Like not going completely out, but the power wasn’t stable.

It seems like now the company is trying to fix all the problems. They’ve sent an HVAC person to undo whatever the guy did and an electrician to change out three breakers that were blown, and I think they’re replacing the meter to the house from the power company?

I love my in-laws, but they’re susceptible to being manipulated by “veteran owned companies “My thoughts are that they should get an independent electrical inspector to make sure everything’s right before they let the company off the hook. They are willing to take the company’s word that the work is done right because it’s “ just a great bunch of guys”.

What is the worst hidden issue that could come from the first pop and the day of having the house power surge and decline? I like them and don’t want them to end up crispy critters.

This neat old gun came as a gift with purchase when I bought a neat old house. I’m thinking it’s a kit gun from the 70s maybe. I haven’t seen any marks on it to identify and haven’t sat down to take it apart yet. The ramrod is missing, but it may turn up as we keep cleaning out this house.

Any additional info about it would be much appreciated. Using the Google machine, I’ve seen a lot that look similar , but it kind of has a distinctive heavy but.

One is rip it all out to the studs 10 is ready for paint. How would you judge this lath and plaster?

I hired someone to strip it and after about half a day I get a message that they think I should just put drywall over the whole thing. I think they just maybe underestimated how tenacious wallpaper is. And also underestimated how repairable plaster can be.

So this is partly just vent and partly looking to hear other people’s experiences with removing wallpaper and treating mold and mildew. And especially anybody’s experience with the lender requiring repair escrow before closing.

My husband and I are under contract for our retirement home. Retirement is probably a decade away at least, but we found a beautiful old house 1910 in a quiet, small town near a river. We know she needs work.

We are in the homestretch and the lender is requesting that we have a handyman come in to give an estimate to remove wallpaper and remediate, mold and repair drooping insulation in the basement.

The pictures posted are super close-ups that make everything look 100 times worse than it is. Our plan had been to go up there with some bleach spray for the mold/mildew. And start tackling the wallpaper room by room over the years. When we did the inspection, the insulation didn’t didn’t even register. If anything, I’ll take a broom handle and poke it back up there or take it down and throw it away.

The house is honestly in better shape in a lot of ways than the one we live in. Rock solid, no leaks. The inspector said all of the water damage was probably over 20 years old that they had some kind of a water problem and fixed the problem, but then never fixed any of the cosmetics.

The house has real problems that we were intending to hire professional help for right away. Like the cloth covered service line outside for the electric, and the gray water draining directly into the river. Those were in the report, but they are very worried about that peeling wallpaper?

Anyway, tell me your stories, so I’ll know what to expect one way or the other. What does 2000 ft.² of paneling and wallpaper removal cost in an old house? How do I ensure that anybody that I hire doesn’t destroy the trim work? It’s all wood never been painted and that’s a huge selling point of the house for us.