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Tim S

wrote:

Hi, my family has an old house and we just finished removing old
sheetrock that was just horrible looking. I quite like the bead board
(the real thing not that sheet of bead board stuff) underneath and am
thinking about keeping it exposed (at least on the ceiling) but all of
it is covered in lead paint and all the other woodwork (door/window
frames etc) as well as the outside (which *really* needs to be
stripped/repainted) is all covered in lead paint.

Sheetrock = plasterboard - but what's bead board?

This house is pretty much a "family retreat" now and my uncle is
worried about the lead paint and his children and in truth I am not
sure if I want to expose my kids to lead paint (not that I think they
will be licking the walls or anything).

I don't think it's much of a problem unless it's flaking - here in the UK,
it was lead paint on toys that caused most of the concern, domestically,
what with the sprogs chewing on them. Having said that, we don't use lead
generally these days. Pink lead primer was very common 20 years ago when I
were a lad. Half the houses here must still have coats of it buried under
subsequent layers of whatever. If it's stable enough to paint over, I
personally would just paint over it, with a non leaded paint of course

So, I want to strip at least most of the paint off and repaint it but
wanted to see if anyone had any suggestions i.e. machines, recommended
masks, tools, methods, etc about how best to go about this. Someone had
suggested sand blasting but while I like to think this house is fairly
sturdy (old house) it is still made of mostly pine which strikes me as
being a bit soft for something like sandblasting. I have tried
chemicals in another project and that just doesn't seem to be
realistic for a 4k sq ft house.

If it were me, I'd probably go for a hot air gun and scraper - soften,
scrape off, sweep up. Boring job, but not insurmountable. Perhaps less
likely to produce noxious fumes than a blowtorch, and better than sanding
as you'll not be trying to guard against breathing the dust which will get
everywhere. I'm not an expert on lead paint BTW - that's just how I'd
consider doing it - hang around for more replies...

Another option might be chemical stripper. I have a feeling that I read
somewhere that lead paint goes weird with some chemical strippers, but one
that might be worth a try is a product, that is, in the UK,
called "Ronstrip". It's more or less, AFAICT caustic soda, lime powder and
a few other things, probably plasticisers. Mix with water to a thick paste,
apply 1/4" or so thick, leave for hours/overnight, peel/wash off. Tends to
reduce paint to a liquid then soak it up into the lime. Still messy,
expensive (unless you make your own from the raw components as I did once,
though it wasn't as easy to handle) and tends to raise the grain on pine.

Any ideas would really be appreciated!

Cheers

-Gaiko

Cheers

Tim