Stripping Furniture Part 1

I’m sure my husband was a tad bit excited when he saw the first word of this blog title. Well today is about stripping but it’s furniture and not myself. At least not on the blog.
Anyways, I received an email from a friend the other day asking if I’ve ever stripped furniture. Until recently, the answer would have been no. I did attempt to strip the paint around our front door on The Colonial and that was hard work.
I’ve been working on taking all the black paint off of my kitchen table and chairs but sanding that was hard work. The table top just about put me over the edge so I finally went to Home Depot with the intention of buying some stripper.  I had no clue what I was looking for as this was a spur of the moment decision like most things in my life tend to be.  I knew that I wanted something that wasn’t harmful to breathe in yet still would do the job.  I ended up purchasing  , a pair of heavy duty stripping gloves, a cheapo brush and this stripping tool that looks like a mini shovel.

On a side note, I’m really hoping to have a new camera in my hands by January. Maybe Santa will bring me a nice Christmas present? (hint, hint.)

Anyways, back to stripping. The back of the Citristrip says to place it in a metal container so I found our old chalk bucket from the dollar Target section and used that.

I poured the Citristrip into the bucket and  dipped the brush in and then brushed it on the table.  The nice thing with this product is,  I didn’t have to worry about this smelling yucky or stinking up my garage because it has a nice light orange smell, which I didn’t mind at all.

I applied some stripper last night around maybe 7pm. It was about 2pm the following day when I went out and tried stripping some off for this post. It came off really nice and easy, hardly needed to use any force or pressure with the scarping tool as you can see where the table is showing through nicely in the photo.

The other part of the table that still has residue is from where I tried stripping it after only letting the Citristrip sit for about thirty minutes. I think letting it sit longer is the key here. As with most things, a little patience and usually less work in the long run.

Here is what the paint looks like as it is coming off the furniture, a big gooey mess.

I haven’t tried this on anything with curves or intricate detail yet.  I do need to strip the chairs as well so I will give an update on that soon.  I am not a professional and this is strictly my opinion and what works for me.  If you have used other strippers that you know work well, feel free to comment below or send me an e-mail.  I am also not being paid or endorsed by Citristrip, this is strictly my personal experience and review of this product.