If you've read my first Adventures in Craigslisting post, you'll know that I found a beautiful and cheap German antique coffee table on Craigslist. The table was owned by Chris Howard, who specialized in restoring antique and modern furniture. Chris agreed to strip the table for me after he found out that I wanted to refinish it. He emailed me the next day to tell me how the stripping process had gone on the table.
To find out how gross and horrible the stripping process was, just read more.
Chris wrote,
I stripped the coffee table yesterday. This is one of those projects an amateur would do and vow never to strip finishes again. I thought the finish was a light coat of lacquer, wrong. It's about 10 coats of shellac, and shellac gets real nasty when removing. Good news... the wood looks like solid "genuine" mahogany, and has nice aged (deep red) color. when refinishing, light sanding of the mahogany, medium sanding on the light sections . . . natural stain (or selective staining if you don't want a modern style with high contrast), and oil should do the trick.
Wow—I'm glad that this is a project I didn't have to tackle! Check out all of the nasty stripping pictures below.
David & Scotti
Make Up For Ever
Burberry
Oh I am sooo familiar with this scenario. There were about 8 layers of paint and shellac (dating back 90 years!) on the beadboard wainscoting in my kitchen, and I was fed up with it and decided to strip it. It turned out to be one of the messiest, goopiest, most time-consuming home DIY projects I've done (and I've done a lot!), but it turned out GREAT, and that's what counts
Best of luck on your finished product, too! It looks very promising.
1this is exactly what i fear when i look at all of my furniture pieces that could use a new stain. oy! i'm sure the finished table will look amazing
2Talk about hard work...
3not to mention it smells horrible ....
4Two summers ago I did the same thing to my living room furniture set... The de-gooping was terrible, but well worth the final product! Always a good feeling when a project turns out better than hoped.
5My my, looks like maple syrup.
6This looks like a lot of work! I can't wait to see the before/after pics of hte table though.
7That is definitely a lot of work. You pretty much lucked out!!!
8This is going to turn out beautifully-I can't wait to see.
9Wow! How great he did it for you! Good luck on the staining project! Can't wait to see it when you're done!
10Similiar situation with a 70 year old headboard and footboard - took a week longer than planned due to the *goop* that had to come off! I thought it was blond wood under layers of paint, turned out it wasn't! In the end, the new Ralph Lauren 'Metallics' paint looks gorgeous on it...
I'm sure that your table will be gorgeous once finished! Thank god you didn't have to DIY... you might have almost lost it like I did!
11I personally haven't done this yet, but my future in-laws often buy furniture and other items off Craigslist or at Garage Sales and redo them. They come out awesome, the transformations are incredible and unrecognizable!
Maybe I will take it up to pass my lonely time
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