I just closed on a foreclosed house. The house is actually my girlfriend's parents' house, so I know all the history. They failed to shut the water off when they left, so a pipe broke in the basement and flooded it.

When the bank took it over, they sent down a team who of course stripped all the drywall, etc down to the studs and sprayed everything. EVERYTHING. From the ceiling rafters down to the floor. Whoever was doing it was screwing around too, there was a shampoo bottle in the otherwise OK shower and they painted the bottle (and the shower wall directly behind it ).

My gf said that basement, except for that, was ALWAYS dry. As in, they never even had to run a dehumidifier in there. The room has an oak beam running through the center of the ceiling, oak crown molding, and oak trim along the baseboards... none of it warped, but all of it painted over.

I'm pretty sure that at the very least, the crown molding and oak beam would be unaffected, and would like to strip the sealant paint off of it and refinish it to natural oak.

What's the best way for me to go about this? Chemicals? Forget chemicals and sand it down? Chemicals and then sand?

Bleach and water to kill it.

Oil base kildz I've read will encapsulate it

It's already taken care of, indiscriminately. I want to REMOVE the sealant paint from certain large pieces of oak.

Power planer and electric sander.  

My first thought was a heat gun but I know nothing about the type of paint they applied in this case. I have used a H.G. with great results when stripping latex off solid pine 6 panel doors that were previously stained. You'll probably want to grind some custom profiles on your scraper tools to match the moulding contours. Then comes the sanding, lots of sanding.

IMO it beats using chemical strippers or lacquer thinner plus in a basement you'd want to vent out those fumes.

I'm thinking the oak trim on the baseboards will be easier to replace, and probably not THAT much money when it comes to money vs. time spent. Plus, it had direct contact with the water.

The crown molding will be fun, though.

In a basement they are joists for the floor above.

YOu are well over your head if you do bn ot even undersand bazsic nomenclature.

You leave the sealer coat behind.

Install new gypsum board if you want to 'finish' the basement.

Use 'water resisitant' for the lower panel on the walls.

Us plain on gyp for the upper.

Fill any gap between the upper 4 foot panel and the lower 4 foot panel with plain gyp.

Working a joint (double joint from the narrow fill slip usually) at 4 feet high is FAR easier than crawling around or using a ladder.

Yeah I got it wrong... I have a thousand things to get done, and several tasks at once going. I know what they are for, but got the terminology wrong.

I'm leaving the sealer on all the block, and on everything that won't be visible. We're not going to use gypsum board... we're going to use OSB backing board on the framed walls (not close to the foundation) and do reclaimed pallet walls with reclaimed barn tin as wainscoting. We want it really rustic. Still not sure what we're going to use for the backer on the one remaining wall, but it will be a while until we get to that point. The basement has been bone dry since they bought the house in 1987, except for the flooding from the broken water pipe which resulted in the room being demo'd and sprayed as a preventative measure by the bank. The water wasn't very deep at all, judging by evidence left behind (unsprayed areas of drywall without stains, unsprayed 2x4s that are perfectly clean, etc).

That's all handled; I just need to get the mold sealant off of the unaffected oak trim, especially the crown molding.