Have you ever used paint stripper? This stuff works like magic and will save you HOURS of hard labor! As you know, we had to race to Grand Prairie to go paint my Dad's house's garage door. The HUD appraiser wanted the baked on, chipped, cracked paint removed from the garage door and the few pieces of actual wood trim on my Dad's brick home. So we loaded up all my painting supplies, including this can of Sprayable stripper from Klean Strip. I'd never used this stuff before and honestly didn't know how it would work.
When we got to the house, I went to check out the areas photographed by the appraiser. There were a few places where the weather had caused the paint to flake and chip. The trim on the house had the normal amount of paint you would expect on any house. This seemed like a good part of the job to delegate to my daughter. Rebekah patiently and meticulously chipped away the loose stuff with a paint scraper, sanded it with a hand sander, and painted it with white exterior paint. It was a pretty tedious job and took her the whole day to do, but she did it and I sure was grateful for the help. You can see the hand rail and posts that she painted and they are as good as new. Great job, Rebekah!
Garage door before stripping
But the garage door--It was just a mess! It had years and years of layers of paint on it. I had meant to paint it when I was here last time, but we ran out of time. The surface looked like a parched dried up lake bed with cracks and crevices all over. I tried my best to scrape off the paint, but it didn't budge..not a speck! I could scrape the garage door frame and the frames around the window panes and remove the chipped stuff with a reasonable amount of effort, but not the door.
Upper half of Garage door..before stripping...Lower half after stripping.
It was 11:30am and I was at a total impasse. This job HAD to be complete before dark. I simply didn't have another day to do it before the closing of the sale. That's when I thought about the can of stripper. I had purchased it when I did the paint inside the house several months ago, but never needed it. I wasn't sure how it worked either, but obviously it was supposed to remove paint. I sure hoped it would work as advertised.
I put on some garden gloves and since I didn't have anything to spray the caustic stuff with, I just grabbed a big paint brush and poured the clear goo into the pan. I slathered the stuff on with the brush and then sat back to watch it work. Wow!! Amazing! This stuff was a God-send. Kudos to the Klean Strip company for such a great product. They literally saved my skin. I didn't even have to wait a whole 15 minutes before the paint started 'curdling'. Of course, if I were working on a nice piece of furniture (which I plan to do in the near future), I would be more careful and use less, but we are talking about an 1/8th of an inch thick layers of baked on paint.
I had laid down a sheet of plastic to protect the cement from the wet gooey clumps that I scraped off which was a good thing as the stuff likes to stick to whatever it falls on.
Almost clean wood after one pass with the scraper.
And be aware that you don't want to breathe even a whiff of this stuff and you sure don't want it on your skin. It burns like fire! (Can you tell that I speak from experience?) My friend, Laurie, said she uses this all the time and invested in very good gloves to wear. It melted right through my rubber gloves! I didn't find out Laurie knew about this stuff until after I got home. She uses this stuff to re-do furniture too.
Well, I didn't have a scraper with me to scrape the windows free of the old paint and silicone caulk that had gotten on them many years ago, so this isn't picture perfect. However, the appraiser wanted function..not beauty, and I was out of time. I did the best I could. We did NOT do this door perfectly, but in 6 hours, I was able to get off most of the paint, sand it all with my machine sander almost smooth, and get the required two layers of paint on the door. Voila! Painted door and no chipped paint!
Now we are anxiously awaiting word from the buyer's appraiser to see if it has passed the HUD inspection. You have to try this stuff if you are trying to remove old paint from a surface. It's worth every penny!
And I just knew you would enjoy getting to see the cutie pie that we got to visit with every morning while staying at Aunt Joan's house. Her grandson, Easton, is just darling! Thanks again Aunt Joan for hosting us at such late notice. We so appreciated your hospitality. :o)
Ladies, I'm such a novice at furniture re-doing...What has been your experience with this stuff? What advice would you give about using this for a good piece of furniture?
Happy Homemaking!
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