Confessions of a Stripper

I did it.

I said I'd never do it again, but I spent the weekend....

stripping!

Come on!  You know I'd never wear pink.

This is the kind of stripping I'm talking about.

Now that Annie Sloan Chalk Paint has taken over, there isn't much of a need

for chemical paint strippers, denatured alcohol, mineral spirits, or primer,

but last weekend I used all four.

Do you remember the two fixer-upper cabinets I bought last fall for $25 apiece?

They were built into an archway of the house they came from.

I repaired the broken mullion (this is the before) and removed the decals from the glass. 

 The open side was enclosed and the piece was given a new wood top and molding. 

 Even the warped and broken shelves were replaced.

Here it is ready to be finished.

I cleaned the piece with mineral spirits and touched up all the chips and scratches

with artist oil paints.  I also stained the new wood to match the old mahogany stain.

Then I talked to our daughter and she said she'd prefer a painted finish.

No problem, right?

I wiped down the piece with mineral spirits to remove most of the stain, and

gave it a light sanding.  Then I primed it with Zinsser primer.

Oh, noooooooooo.........

This has never happened to me before!  The primer crackled! 

Shellac based primer + oil based stain = DISASTER

What to do?  Now that the stain was sealed under the primer

 I thought a second coat would go on smoothly.

Nope.  Now the finish was alligatored!

Did I stop there?  Oh, no.  I sanded the cabinet down and applied one coat of

the water based white paint to even out the finish.  And it worked!!!

Whew.

Fast forward to the next morning.

After drying overnight the crackled, alligatored texture was back.

There was only one solution to this whole ugly mess.  I grabbed the nearest pair of scissors

and cut my hair off.  Yup.  Some people resort to drugs or alcohol.  Others may

overeat or bite their fingernails.  Me, I choose to mutilate my hair when I'm

at the end of my rope.

Okay.  Back to the problem at hand.  After I calmed down and lightened the load

on my brain I realized the only way to fix this cabinet was to

Strip.  All.  The.  Paint.  Off.

The worst was over........or so I thought.

I was out of paint stripper and had to go out in public with my self-inflicted haircut!!!!

I managed to get in and out of the store without bumping into anybody I knew.  Then

I spent the next 8 hours....well.......stripping.

After 2 long days of toiling on this cabinet, I'm pretty much right back where I started.

Well, if you'll excuse me, I have a phone call to make.  It seems I won't be needing

my Friday afternoon hair appointment after all.

How was your weekend?

Vickie