31 Thoughts about joinery restoration

To what extend needs joinery to be prepared/restored?
House Muschamp had suffered a lack of maintenance and this was shown predominantly at the interior joinery.
My position here is that I think it would be nice to see that the maintenance issue is dealt with and that any (borer) damage is taken care of.

Question with restoration always is what effort needs to be put in for what result?

I will go for the result in the first instance, regardless the effort and review as I go.
The basic idea is to expose all timbers; no paint if not necessary.
The native Kauri and Rimu timbers are astonishingly beautiful but the timbers of the house look mat, arid and filthy at this moment.
I would like to see if I can bring the timers back to live.

Accidental damage will be restored while the normal smooth wear and tear will remain exposed.
I don't see a need to express the fact that materials are reused, nor do I like to put any emphasis on repairs.
Reused materials will always show their history anyway and it is fine with me if repairs still can be traced if you know what to look for.

Borer:
The Sap, Colour and Hearth Rimu grows in the same tree.
After being milled the timber is categorized by its hardness.
Softer bits however still might occur in the hearth wood and visa versa.
Borer can live and flourish only in the Sap Rimu and softer parts in the Colour Rimu.

All Rimu in the house had been unprotected and exposed to borer for over a 100 years.
The borer had opportunity for over a century to find and eat all soft Rimu and I think it did.
The borer damage found now might be 85 years old, or 60, or 35 years old.

I like to think all softer timbers have been found as part of a natural selection process.
What is not eaten by now had been too hard and, for as long as the timbers stay dry, it will not be eaten.
Borer-damaged bits and pieces will be taken out and replaced with reused Rimu.

For paint-stripping I would like to do as much as possible by hand and the use of a heat gun is an acceptable alternative when there're multiple layers of paint to be removed.
I am a bit reluctant to use chemical paint strippers because of the assumed environmental impact.
Since scraping and heat are no options for clearing glass I probably will use some chemical paint stripper here.

The sanding will be done with the help of various sanding machines.
Once all repairs are fixed, the last round of sanding will be done by hand.

My preferred finish is an oil-based finish; my grandfather was a painter and “water based paint” (“waoturvarif” in local dialect), was his swear word for something that was not made properly.
However, while researching options I was advised not to use oil.
I started using a polyurethane finish but wasn't happy with the result; the timber became "plastified".
The 100 year old timbers were very dry and needed oil.
After all I ended up treating the timbers with a Danski Teak Oil (interior) and a Super Danish Oil (exterior) before putting them back into storage.
The exterior timbers will require annual maintenance and, once installed, all interior timbers will be re-oiled and finished with a bee-wax.

All glues and fillers used are water resistant and for all the exterior timbers I used a two component epoxy.