If you read my “about me” section, you already know I enjoy
working with furniture. Building,
painting, staining, distressing… really everything, with the exception of
stripping. I detest the furniture stripping process with every fiber of my
being, but sometimes it’s a necessary evil.
That’s actually what this post is about.
I’ve dabbled in this hobby for a few years now, but it took
me some time to work up the courage to actually strip a piece down to bare
wood. Why did I dance around it so
long? Intimidation. And rightfully so… there’s a reason there are
a ton of youtube videos and step by step guides on the stripping process. It’s not always easy! However, in true Jessie fashion, I got sick of
being such a wuss and I decided to jump in, head first.
It all began in early May.
The city we live in has great city-wide garage sales once a month in the
summer, and let me tell you, it is a BIG DEAL!
I’ve been lusting after new furniture ever since we moved from our
apartment to our house, but unfortunately, our budget just wasn’t quite big
enough.
Rather than continuing to want something I couldn’t have, I
decided it was time to change my perspective.
When we pick out furniture, aren’t we trying to find something that
reflects our personality? Something that
is an extension of our individuality, right?
If that’s the case, why would I want brand new, manufactured furniture? Anybody else could go out and buy the same
pieces I picked out….. what does that say about my individuality? Isn’t it better to have furniture that tells
a story? I decided it was.
After consulting some of my thrifty friends for their top
garage-sale success tips, I set out with a plan. I didn’t get a ton of stuff, but I did score
a really sweet narrow console table for $10.
I think it was a steal… some of you bargainers might not, please don’t
rain on my parade! Isn’t she
gorgeous?
Ok, so maybe not so much. The doors didn't shut, she was wobbly, and the color scheme was less than ideal.
But I had a vision for her! Strip
her down, paint her up, and switch her knobs (did I leave out any other
horrible innuendos?) and she would be perfect in my home! Tots and I went out and bought a detail
sander, some cheap stripper (I don’t remember what the brand was, just that I
bought it at Menards), and black gel stain.
The next day, I started sanding. This wouldn’t take too long, right? Wrong.
Good thing I bought the chemical stripper, right? Sort of.
Again, I jumped right in. I can
be a pretty impulsive person, if I get an idea in my head, I typically just go
for it without slowing down… luckily I had some gloves on hand, or else I would
be typing this with chemically burned fingers.
I sprayed the stripper all over the top of the table and
anxiously waited the 15 minutes, as directed on the can. Ok… so maybe not the whole 15 minutes. Again, I’m pretty impulsive and I tend to be
a bit impatient, too. I waited almost 15 minutes, and then took my
plastic scraper to the bubbly, gooey mess.
Much to my dismay, it didn’t really take that much off. After scraping and scrubbing, I still had a
nasty, stubborn layer of varnish. I
sprayed it down again, and this time decided to wait the entire 15
minutes. I had to distract myself… I
went inside, made a cup of coffee, checked Facebook, and came back outside to
find (once again) a nasty, bubbly mess.
After scraping it down again, and repeating this process once more, I
have up on the idea of using chemical stripper.
Maybe enough varnish was gone, and it would be easy to sand it down to
bare wood, I hoped.
I let the table sit for a WEEK so the goopy varnish could
harden, and then I sanded it down. After
hours with a sander (and countless clogged sanding sheets), I realized that I
wasn’t going to get this piece down to bare wood. I would have been pretty disappointed about
it, had I not already been beyond tired and frustrated, with my right hand numb
and tingly from hours with the sander.
I searched the web and found some great step-by-step
directions for painting finished wood. I
went out, bought myself some Rustoleum primer and flat black spray paint, and
didn’t look back. After 2 days of painting and 4 new knobs, my piece
was ready to find her place in my home.
Did I mention that Rustoleum makes a no sanding/no stripping
primer? No? Well they do!
If you’re planning to paint a piece of furniture rather than staining or
varnishing, I would say go out and buy yourself a few cans of that primer. I promise you won’t regret it! There are tons of great blogs you can check
out, if you’re a little nervous about the process. For this project, I referred to this
post from I create… with love
(which I found on Pinterest, of course).
Although I didn’t use the product she recommended, it gave me a good
general idea of what I was doing.
*It took me a few months and a new project that was (is) very
special to me before I was finally ready to revisit the whole stripping racket
again, and I’m happy to say it’s going much better this time around. I’m still working on this new piece, but my
goal is to have it in my house and ready for use before Christmas, so hopefully
that blog post isn’t too far off.*
The moral of this story?
Avoid stripping at all cost. Just
kidding. But seriously, if you’re going
to paint a piece, you don’t need to strip it.
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