(Disclaimer: If you think this post is about me taking my clothes off, you are going to be disappointed. I am not that type of girl! Shame!)
Anyhoo..
A few weekends ago I picked up a lovely little side table at the local Salvation Army. It was solid wood, very sturdy, with two drawers and a great classic shape. It was only $25! But is was UGLY. Some very misguided person had taken it upon themselves to paint it a mucus yellow color. It was awful, which is probably why it was at the Salvation Army.
But I could see its beauty through the horrid paint job, so I decided I’d take it home with me and strip it of its embarrassing coat of paint. How hard could it be, right?
Sigh. I never learn.
After googling the crap out of “how to strip paint from wood” I happily flitted on over to Home Depot and picked up some Citristrip. Why Citristrip? Because it was gel based (won’t run down the legs of the table) and it smelled like oranges (still toxic, but as long as it smells good…). I also grabbed a plastic dropcloth and a plastic scraper (metal would gouge the wood) and then flitted happily back home.
This past weekend I decided I was going to tackle my stripping project. I set up my work space in the garage, donned my super sexy plastic goggles and long dishwashing gloves and started globbing the Citristrip on like a pro (or not). After waiting the obligatory half-hour, I got to work scraping.
And scraping.
And scraping.
Holy hell, did I scrape. And only the top layer of the mucus coating came off…so I had to do it all again.
Glob, wait, scrape.
This time the second layer came off, but there was still quite a bit of paint stuck on the table. So I did it all again.
Glob (frickin’) wait (frackin’) scrape.
This time, most of the paint had come away but there was still some stubborn stuff left in the cracks and crevices of the wood. So I read the handy instructions on the back of the Citristrip and went and got some toothpicks to scrape out the stubborn paint.
Except that a lot of it would not scrape out. I probably went through 400 toothpicks, most of which broke in pieces after one swipe, and very little paint got removed from the crevices.
Blast and damnation!
At this point, I had been stripping for 4 hours and my back, shoulders and neck felt like I had been hit by a truck. Lobster poked his head out into the garage and very sweetly suggested that I call it a night and come in for dinner. I was tempted to say no (because I’m stubborn…I know, shocker) but he lured me with a beer. It was a very tasty beer.
So now I have a mostly stripped side table chillin’ in my garage. Yesterday I googled the crap out of “how to strip paint from cracks in wood.” I am going to not-so-happily flit over to Home Depot today and find a metal crack scraper thingy. I WILL get that damn stubborn paint out of that wood! I will not be defeated by a horrendous mucus yellow paint job!
I will not go down without a fight!!! (Insert fist pumping here).
Anyone else tried to strip furniture? Am I the only one who thinks it’s hard? Surely, there’s an easier way…
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