Living in a "dated" house

[Metric Mouse]

How big is the house?  I live in a 1968 home that was last updated in 1991.  So I have oak trim, and while it isn't quite the honey oak horror, it isn't 1920s hard oak worth saving. It's contractor grade trim stained darkish brown. Probably last touched 20 years ago.

We have a 3,000 sq foot house, with 25 doors (!!!).  The doors are solid wood so we won't replace them, but are on a mission to GO WHITE with trim.

To the commenter that said this is a few weekends + a few hundred in paint...I'd disagree. We have kids so we are doing this slowly and also painting the walls as we go, but we are about half finished with the upstairs trim and are on our third gallon of $70 paint. Brushes are expensive too.

We got a contractor quote over $10k so it is obviously much cheaper than that, but by the time we do all the doors and trim (3 coats each, and spackling and sanding...oh the sanding!) this is well over 500 hours of work and likely 8 gallons of paint.  If the OP doesn't have doors to paint, maybe more like 3-5 gallons depending what kind of trim you have.

FwIW, it looks really good in the rooms that are done!!

Congrats! That's quite the work load. After running the numbers on doing the trim and doors in my basement, I decided to hire it out. If you save $9K doing it yourself, at 500 hours that's $18 an hour. Not bad.  Since my numbers came out around 1/3 of that, it was much more efficient to hire it out. I can only imagine how improved your rooms much look with nice, clean, white trim!

[Noodle]

My technique has limited applicability--live somewhere worse first. I have the 90s white with oak trim, yellow travertine tile that looks like something out of Dynasty (but cheap), and some wonky molding installation. However, since I came from a 1960s rental with kitchen cupboards and bathroom vanity made out of plywood with drawers that didn't open and close properly, tiled floors that never looked clean, and a tiled kitchen counter with unsealed grout that always grossed me out, the 1990s look pretty good!

[MMMarbleheader]

Without reading all of the responses, just to mention this...

We live in a neighborhood with lots and lots of old condo buildings (think 80-100 years old). Most of them used to have nice, nice wooden trims, elaborate and real wood. Then this trim got painted at some point, let's say in the 70s, because that was trendy then. Then in the 90s and 00s people spent LOTS of money to have the paint stripped to reveal the original wood, because that was trendy then. This work is truly expensive, and the workers sometimes do a crappy job because it's labor intensive and they need to move on. So we're doing it on our own (husband is doing it). The house is so much nicer with the original wood. We don't care about what's trendy, though.

The point being... By the time you paint all the wood, and maybe wait 10-20 years, wood may be trendy again, and your painted house will be dated again. Are you going to spend thousands and thousands of dollars (or hundreds and hundreds of hours) to strip the paint? That with no guarantee that it will look as nice as it is now?

I am a different person I know, but I would just enjoy what I have and focus on things with higher return (hobbies, friends, the like). If you worry about the trim on your doors, you have too much time and/or money, IMO, which I understand can be different than yours.

Did you get your lead levels checked/?

[Bracken_Joy]

Without reading all of the responses, just to mention this...

We live in a neighborhood with lots and lots of old condo buildings (think 80-100 years old). Most of them used to have nice, nice wooden trims, elaborate and real wood. Then this trim got painted at some point, let's say in the 70s, because that was trendy then. Then in the 90s and 00s people spent LOTS of money to have the paint stripped to reveal the original wood, because that was trendy then. This work is truly expensive, and the workers sometimes do a crappy job because it's labor intensive and they need to move on. So we're doing it on our own (husband is doing it). The house is so much nicer with the original wood. We don't care about what's trendy, though.

The point being... By the time you paint all the wood, and maybe wait 10-20 years, wood may be trendy again, and your painted house will be dated again. Are you going to spend thousands and thousands of dollars (or hundreds and hundreds of hours) to strip the paint? That with no guarantee that it will look as nice as it is now?

I am a different person I know, but I would just enjoy what I have and focus on things with higher return (hobbies, friends, the like). If you worry about the trim on your doors, you have too much time and/or money, IMO, which I understand can be different than yours.

Did you get your lead levels checked/?

There's an organization that will send you free test kits: http://leadsafeamerica.org/

[merula]

Did you get your lead levels checked/?

There's an organization that will send you free test kits: http://leadsafeamerica.org/

Lead paint was outlawed for residential use in 1977, but was starting to be phased out prior to that. It'd be easier to test the paint first, and then get blood lead levels checked if needed.

[Bracken_Joy]

Did you get your lead levels checked/?

There's an organization that will send you free test kits: http://leadsafeamerica.org/

Lead paint was outlawed for residential use in 1977, but was starting to be phased out prior to that. It'd be easier to test the paint first, and then get blood lead levels checked if needed.

Another good resource: I know my city (Portland) offers free lead testing for children and pregnant or nursing women at our public libraries. Worth looking into if your city has similar!

Also, most municipal water companies, at least in my area, will send you a free lead in water test kit.