31 Days of Paint #7 Unpainting

Thank you for coming back to my 31 Days of Paint Series. If you would like to see it from the entire series just click HERE.

I know I usually write about painting something. But have you ever thought about pealing back the layers of a painted piece? Stripping it or as I call it: unpainting it? In this case, we purchased an old door and are turning it into a corner shelf like this one I found on Pinterest:

source

  

Joe cut the door down the center at just the right angles (because he’s amazing at it!) and then glued and nailed it together. I was just going to sand the door and paint over it but we decided it was in such rough condition that we would need to strip the paint. Luckily we had this can of  Jasco Green Strip in the garage. It works miracles.



Read the directions and do this outdoors. It’s very messy but doesn’t have too strong of an odor. We used safety goggles and gloves. We (and by we, I mean Joe) poured the stripper directly on the door then brushed it around with an old paint brush (a bristle brush, one you will most likely throw away.) The stripper almost instantly started to bubble the paint. Then we removed the bubbled up paint with a putty knife (I did actually help with this part).



We used an old coffee can to collect the layers of paint and were surprised how many layers we found. There was green, yellow and white.



Once we got to this point, I realized that I didn’t want to add that next layer of stripper. I wanted to keep this lovely pealing patina right here. So we after removing the last of the stripper, we let it dry over night.



This is after a little sanding. I love the layers of green, wood grain, yellow and white. I still had quite a bit of sanding to go.




I worked on in until the sun set so the picture is dark but I am so pleased with how it looks. After I get it all cleaned up, I am going to coat it with a layer of wax so our pealing paint doesn’t continue to peal. Then we will add shelves.