I'd do everything I could to do it in the house. If youust remove it from the house I wouldn't worry at that point it's outside, just dont let them walk through it and you will wear a respirator and then rinse the boards when done before you take back in the house.
Maybe it is just a mental thing but I get real uneasy working around lead. I tore up an old porch last summer with several coats of lead paint. I wear my respirator and take precautions to stay out of the dust and whatnot. I just don't like it. I get to say I am worried about my family, really, it is me!
I have a house built around 1830 with random width longleaf yellow pine flooring. I understand keeping the house as original as possible but sympathize with the lead issue. Any type of sanding either inside or outside is going to create dust and that dust is going to get everywhere so would not suggest that. I like the idea of stripping the paint and even though there is always bits that do not pull up they can be scraped and that creates must less dust than any type of sanding. You may even have to make your own scrapers to get between the boards and give them a nice edge. Removing the boards will always cause some type of damage and unless you have spare boards or an area that you can cover with another type of wood you may end up short a few boards but stripping them outside would give you more freedom with stripping especially the rinsing process. As far as gaps I can always tell when the basement lights are on as I can see the lights between the cracks. Jute was the preferred method of sealing the cracks though I have seen floors where some craftsmen have routed the joints and placed an interleaved strip in there which makes an interesting detail. More of a craftsman style than a farmhouse style but still interesting.
We went wit resawn,reclaimed lumber for our flooring in our 1860's farm house. NOT cheap but got the look we wanted. These were old barn beams resawn and tongue and groove. I put several floor support posts in the basement for strength and it also helped with the creaking. Word of warning. If you have indoor pets pine is not the best due to it being soft.
Put up a tongue and groove ceiling in my parent's retirement home they built on our farm years ago. Tongue and grooved the ends. Floor looks beautiful.
farmer steve, those deep windows are really nice. Post and beam house framing or are the windows bumped out a little?
Brick farmhouse. We made them a little deeper than original when we put 2x4 studs in for adding insulation and giving us a place to run duct work upstairs. We used cabinet grade plywood for the sills, sides and top. My trim guy replicated all the trim to look original. We used old village paint for the older look.
I was wondering what that fuzzy hair stuff was... I have been scratching my head about that for years.
So I didn't want to go with the stripper chemicals if I could avoid it and I didn't want to go with a heat gun due to the possible chemicals(lead) given off. I picked up a cheap heat gun to give it a shot and it does actually work pretty well. I found this thing called an infra-red paint stripper and it does a really good job. You put it on the floor for 30 seconds, move it to the next spot and then scrape off the hot paint. I think this will get most of the paint off to the point that I can use a sander, chemical stripper or heat gun to finish the job. This is probably a little slower than a heat gun but uses a lot less energy and only heats to 400° so it doesn't burn the paint, just gets it really hot. I have some seriously ugly floors and I am hopeful that I can save them. This green floor is one of the better floors in the house with only one or 2 coats of paint. I will be interested to see what happens on the rooms with 8 coats.
