My Most Used Paint Stripping Methods

I can’t even count the number of times I have repainted and refinished certain pieces of furniture. I love doing it because without much effort and very little money, you can have a whole new look assuming you have a decent quality base piece.

I was about to start stripping the paint off a nightstand for my daughter’s room but thought maybe you’d like to do it with me. Maybe the thought of this makes you feel a bit apprehensive and maybe I can show you just how simple it is. It’s not even a little bit scary.

There are a couple methods I use most often and I will show those in this blog post. First let’s talk about the piece I’m working on.

The funny thing about this is that when I got bought it off Facebook Marketplace it was a medium brown wood nightstand but my daughter didn’t want that. Everything was white and pink and sort of a taupe gray in her room.

So I painted it the same pink as she had on a feature wall in her room and then I added some floral decals to the drawers. I can’t find a photo of it when I had completely finished it but these were not the decals I ended up with and I put some cute little white knobs on it. Sigh…..I need to get better at taking pics of everything.

Here’s the funny part.

Guess how my daughter wants her nightstand to be now?

Yup! Natural wood. So basically the way it was when I got it before I painted it.

Heat Gun Method

One method I use to remove paint is a heat gun. This is especially effective if you have a lot of fairly flat areas. Its hard to be able to scrape the paint off when you’ve heated it up on curved surfaces. Sometimes a wire brush works better but it’s still a bit tricky.

As a tip its best if you can work on your piece using your heat gun either outside or in your garage or a well ventilated space. Sometimes there is little to no issues while removing the paint and sometimes, depending on the finish that was originally on the wood, the heat gun can cause the finish to smoke a little. I may have set off the smoke alarms in my house once or twice while working on a project.

I mean, it’s possible.

I started this one this morning in my house but quickly moved out into my garage because I didn’t want the mess in my house. My garage is not conducive to photos but I decided to go for it anyways.

So basically you just want to hold the heat gun on an area until it starts to bubble. Then scrape it off using a paint scraper. Once you have all the paint removed you will need to lightly sand to remove the bit of residue that’s left.

Another thing I like about using the heat gun is that when you have the majority of the paint scraped off, while there is a little bit of a gummy residue left behind, its easy to sand. Some of the other methods require a fair bit of dry time before you can sand.

Hand Sanding

There’s something to be said about the old fashioned method of sandpaper and elbow grease. Even with the other methods I end up sanding just a little to get the beautiful wood to show itself off.

Of course if you’ve used one of the other methods the sanding is very minimal and easy.

Look at that wood grain!

Once in a while you will encounter a piece (like this wood desk I got for my daughter’s room) that resists all attempts to strip the finish no matter what you try! Don’t be discouraged. It happens to all of us.

On this piece every type of chemical stripper (I never use the really nasty ones that require you to wear a gas mask just to apply it!), heat gun, oven cleaner……failed. In the end the only way to remove the dark finish was to sand it.

Every

Square

Inch!

But the end results were worth it.

Check out the gorgeous tones in this wood desk and hutch. I took off the typical thin backing board and used tongue and groove planks instead.

It ought to be said that sanding doesn’t work well on bits that have a lot of detail because you will end up flattening out the details and losing them. You might have to combine several methods in that case. Hand sanding on the flat bits and heat gun or some sort of chemical stripper on the detailed bits.

Oven Cleaner Method or Citristrip

If you read or have heard of Pinterest or Instagram then I’m sure you’ve heard about using oven cleaner to strip furniture. Of course they make it sound like the paint or stain and varnish will instantly peel off without the slightest bit of effort on your part which simply isn’t true. I have used this method on a number of pieces and here is what I’ve learned….

This works best for pieces that have only stain and varnish and whose finish is fairly old and worn.
Don’t expect there to be no effort. At minimum you will have to scrub it pretty hard with a stiff brush and rinse it well, sometimes resorting to a pressure washer.
It will likely take more than one application.
Once the oven cleaner dries (like when its sitting out in the sun where everyone says to do this) it doesn’t do any good anymore so you have to keep applying or work with it while its still wet.
It will remove paint if it’s a fairly thin coat but if it’s thick paint you will need multiple applications. It can help to scuff up the surface in between applications with a wire brush or something to allow the oven cleaner to absorb more.

Once you spray the oven cleaner on and let it sit for a while it will start to make the paint crackle if you are using it to strip paint. This is when you can mess with it to scrap some off and allow the next application of oven cleaner to absorb more.

It took about 3 applications of oven cleaner to get down through the solid coat of paint this piece had on it. That’s about the same amount and I would need to use if I was using something like Citri-Strip. It helps if you can wrap the piece with plastic of some sort to keep it really wet but depending on the size of the piece you can’t always do that.

PLEASE NOTE: If you use oven cleaner or citric-strip to remove paint or stain, you have to clean it off afterwards and let it fully dry before you paint, stain, wax or polyurethane the piece. I typically use mineral spirits for this task and a soft rag. Make sure to wear gloves or your hands will feel rougher than the sand paper you used on the project!

You can also invest in a sand blaster for furniture refinishing that actually uses really find ground walnut shells rather than sand. I have one. Its not something I would drag out for every piece I wanted refinished but it really comes in handy on fragile pieces that have a lot of nooks and crannies. I used it a lot on the nightstands I made for my son’s room from an old vintage desk……oh that’s right! I haven’t shared that makeover with you yet!

Alright, back to the pink nightstand.

The edges and detailed bits will take you longer to strip than the entire rest of the piece but eventually you will get there.

Here it is all stripped and cleaned. You can tell where it still isn’t dry on the lower drawer with the blotchy colors. Make sure it is completely dry before even think about putting any finish on it or you will have a mess!

I always find it hard to wait patiently at this point because the hard part is finally over and I want to do the fun part and see the finished product.

Resist the urge to rush it.

Wait an extra day if you need to.

It will be worth it, I promise.

At last! The moment of truth!

Time for the polyurethane top coat. I use no more than a satin sheen on anything.

By this point you can see the light at the end of the tunnel and you are very glad you put in the effort to strip the piece and reveal all that amazing wood! Just look at all those different colors and that grain pattern!

I hope this helps a little if you have a piece of furniture you’ve been thinking about stripping paint or stain from but have hesitated to start. Honestly it’s going to take a while to do it nicely but it’s very worth it in the end.