Ladies and Gentleman, I present to you The LaLa Way’s first DIY post. Yaaaaaaay! I figured I would start the DIY posts with a “smaller” project. I add the quotation marks because this project can be rather time consuming and a good amount of work.
This coffee table has been in our family for over 10 years and according to my parents, it was purchased from the IKEA “As-is” section. When we first got the table it was a light, plain wood. I’ll be honest, I didn’t even remember the original look. After we moved to El Paso, Natasha and I decided to decoupage the top with scrapbook paper and then paint the rest of it. Once we moved back to this area we left the decoupage and just painted over it with a reddish, brown color. Lastly, Natasha and I took the table with us to our apartment in NYC and painted it the color you see here: just brown.
If you have read some of the previous posts then you already know Natasha and Steve bought a new house a few months ago. Well they are transforming one of the rooms into a library so I told Natasha she could take the coffee table to do whatever she wants with it. The reality is, we could have just painted over it again. But I thought it would be best to just start with a clean slate, especially since you could still see the outlines of the decoupage on the top.
I did a little research on paint strippers since I had never actually stripped anything before. Through my research I found CitriStrip which is a safer paint and varnish stripping gel. It is less toxic and has a citrus smell to it (hence the name). I purchased mine at Home Depot and bought the smaller container since I didn’t think I would need a whole large one.
I read the back of the label while I was in the store to be sure I had everything. The label suggests using a metal container to pour the gel into while you use it so I just picked up a little metal pail at Home Depot. Next, it suggested to use odorless mineral spirits to clean the piece after the stripping was complete. Again, I was able to find a product that was safer than the normal mineral spirits (I had no clue what mineral spirits were anyway). I knew we had a paint stripping tool at the house but just to avoid having to look for it, I bought a new one that was 5-in-1. I will say that the gel said to use a plastic tool but I missed that part so I didn’t use a plastic one.
To start I put on a pair of gloves to wear while I worked with the gel. I poured a small amount into the pail since I didn’t really know how much product I would actually need for each section.
I used a cheap chip paintbrush that I would eventually throw away once I was done. I covered the entire table, as well as the inside, with a layer of the gel. I noticed that the gel started to dry pretty quickly so you could actually see where you had applied the product.
Once the table was covered with gel, I tried wrapping the table with garbage bags thinking it could possibly either speed up the process or allow it to soak in better. The label on the gel suggests that it could take anywhere from 30 minutes up to 24 hours for the gel to work.
I tend to be a little impatient when doing projects and want to get it done so I checked a spot after about 2 hours. And it was starting to look like this:
As you can see, the paint layers were starting to lift and peel away. Most of the table wasn’t really where I wanted it yet so I decided to leave it for the 24 hours. Unfortunately, I don’t think I put a thick enough first coat on the table and even after 24 hours there were a ton of spots that hadn’t started lifting.
I decided to go ahead and add another, thicker coat of the gel all over the table and not cover it. After 24 hours, I went back down to the basement and even the decoupage was peeling away! At this point I put back on my gloves and started scraping away the layers with my stripping tool. Here is a look at what it should look like when you start stripping (I apologize for the slight blurriness):
This process did take a few hours and because I refused to stop until I was done, my hands were definitely sore. The most time consuming part was getting into the crevices and the inside of the table. I also went through a few pairs of gloves with my nails, oops! But when all is said and done, you have the wonderful feeling of seeing the original state of the wood and the absence of decoupage!
The next day I took a regular sponge and wiped down the table with the mineral spirits. Easy peezy. There are still a couple of spots that just need to be sanded down but the clean slate of a table makes it much easier to re-do. Although the CitriStrip does take longer than traditional paint stripper, I 100% recommend it over the traditional products. The smell is more pleasant and I think it is always wonderful to have safer alternatives be available to you.
Hope you enjoyed this post and good luck if you decide to try stripping one of your own pieces!