Continuing in the current trend on this blog of pushing everybody’s race buttons as a means to celebrate the 4th of July, the Mrs and I started a project on the 3rd and continued on the 4th that set out to obliterate the self image of a young African American girl in our neighborhood.
No, not really. Well, kinda, but we didn’t do anything wrong.
We did, several months ago, find a dresser piece abandoned on the side of the road in our neighborhood. We took a quick look, and discovering it to be mostly solid wood, decided to take it home for refinishing.
What made it unique is that a woman we can only assume is named Deidre Hicks, based on the label inside, had decoupaged the entire surface of the thing with cutouts of African-American women from fashion magazines. But Miss Deidre obviously no longer wanted to hold on to it, so we don’t feel particularly bad about scraping it all off. Not that it wasn’t beautiful in its own personally significant way, but I’m not sure how we’d design a room around it.
Anyways, the biggest hurdle in the refinishing process is getting the old stuff off.
First, remove all the hardware. There’s no reason to make the job harder for yourself by having to work around tiny pieces.
Second, remove all the doors and drawers. Again, the more you can eliminate the joints and crevasses where paint is inclined to be un-removable, the better. Its easier to put it back together than to dig out all those tiny bits.
Third, apply a coat of chemical stripper with a paintbrush. In our experience, the best practice here is to only tackle two 2’x2’ areas at a time. Apply stripper to the first area and then let it sit while applying it to the second. Go back to the first and it should be ready for the first scraping. It'll get all bubbly like a toxic apple pie when it's ready.
Sidenote: I’m not a fan of safety but I can agree that rubber gloves are helpful here for the average user. There’s a slight burn if you get it on your skin. I would recommend the thin medical rubber gloves though. You are going to be applying in small doses and doing a lot of scraping, so cumbersome dishwashing type rubber gloves get in the way. None of the pictures shown illustrate the usage of rubber gloves because I'm really macho... when I'm doing a refinishing/decorating project.
Fourth, using a plastic or metal scraper, apply pressure to the bubbly mass of paint. One long continuous motion is usually the best to get the whole way down to the wood, or as far as you can get in one stripping. If the paint on the piece is especially soft, you may find that you can simply wipe it off with a rag. Good on you. It definitely keeps you from gouging the wood with a scraper, which you otherwise should wield with caution.
Fifth, repeat as necessary. Then repeat again. And again. And again. Until you get to this:
LOOK! Pretty solid oak. Well, mostly solid.
In our case, we’re still debating what kind of finish we’d like this to have. The more transparent finish you desire, the more paint you’ll need to get off of the bare wood. Clear coats and transparent stains really require you to have every last speck of paint off, while fully opaque latex really only require that you create a smooth substrate for the new coat.
We’re leaning toward a semi-transparent stain, possibly in white or a colorful hue, which will still allow the wood grain to show through. Although as I do the research, I might be interested in trying out some combination of milk paint and chalkboard paint. Check out these shots:
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| Photo via Design Sponge |
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| Photo via Casasugar |
