More living room progress

I didn't accomplish as much today as yesterday, but I still made progress. The stairway is about 75% stripped. I still have half of 6 stairs with padding and carpet adhesive, but the other 10 are down to bare wood and ready for sanding. The railing is coming along a bit more slowly; whether I use the heat gun or Citristrip, the paint is difficult to remove. The top layer is easy enough, and I think it's latex. the layer underneath is brown, and instead of pulling away from the wood, it just melts and smears. As long as I go slowly with the scraper, it comes off pretty cleanly, but it's tedious. After this picture was taken, I stripped about 4 more spindles.

And the picture I promised yesterday of the finished front window...
The house sale I went to wasn't anything worth writing about. They did have a beautiful bathroom with original square mosaic tiles, but it wasn't for sale... I also didn't have my camera, so there's no eye candy. It did put me in the mood for antiquing, though, so I stopped by an antique mall during my errand running. They had a nice pine built-in (at least, it used to be a built-in before it was ripped out) that I'm thinking of buying for the dining room. It's very simple, but I think it would be appropriate for the character of the house. I took a picture using my cell phone, and it didn't turn out very well, but here it is anyways.

It appears to have its original finish, which is in excellent shape. The bottom section is just one big cupboard with a single shelf. The top part should have a glass window, but it's missing. That actually suits my purposes just fine, since I have a wonderful mom who can make a leaded glass window for it. I mentioned it to Shayne, and we'll probably go look at it again tomorrow.