I missed the previous weekend with a trip up to Martha’s Vineyard and Nantucket. Both islands were a compelling case for historic districts. Both islands were thriving areas that still have new development, but they also maintain a sense of New England character and lots of breathing room with trees and grass on the lots. Such a difference from New Jersey where new development along the Shore fills in the lots so the homes are all packed in together with no grass or trees and the designs have no connection to New Jersey vernacular.

The other main difference between New England and New Jersey is the lack of vinyl siding used in New England. The homes are all cedar shaked and in many cases the roofs still use cedar. This is interesting because in New Jersey everyone will tell you that wood deteriorates too quickly to be used near the ocean, but strange these two islands are packed with wood buildings and they are still standing.

So on the topic of wood, returning to Wildwood, my focus was all wood this weekend. I want to get all the wood stripping done and get a first coat of stain on before I start on the next coat of plaster. The stripping and staining causes some splatters on the walls so I want to keep the next coat of plaster as clean as possible.

At this point most of the paint is off the baseboards and door frames with some spots still remaining on the windows. I get the windows coated with a last pass of chemical stripper to get the paint off and while that cooks, I do another scrub down of the baseboards using TSP.

With the windows, I end up using the dental picks and scrubbers to get the last main bits of paint off. There’s still a bit of blotches on the window due to lots of nicks in the wood, so I’ll need to manually touch those up with paint. After I’m done with the stripper on the windows, I then start washing them down with TSP to try and remove the white paint haze that still remains on the wood.

After the baseboards dry from TSP, I do another washing with linseed oil soap and when the wood is dry, a sanding with 220 grit paper. After the sanding, I wipe down with turpentine to remove the dust.

Now the baseboards are ready for boiled linseed oil to try and bring back some luster to the wood. I use a cut of 40% BLO and 60% turpentine. I apply this and I’ll let that cure for a week before I start staining next week.

The door frames are the last to get some attention. The exterior to these are already washed down with TSP so this is a washing with linseed oil soap. Also there’s a bit of plaster on the edges that I start removing.