July 1, 2012

Welcome to my blog.

This will be a new attempt for me, so don't expect anything spectacular.

This is a picture of a desk I refinished.  It used to be my mom's.  She gave it to me when she and my dad moved out of my childhood home to live with my Opa.  

It had a lot of stain, or paint, or varnish on it.  It was not very pretty.  

I decided to strip whatever was on it and give it to my daughter, Ruth.  

I was not expecting it to take as long as it did.  I started off with a semi paste remover and it was slow going.  I had a great helper in my friend Howard.  He let me keep the desk in his shed ( more like a huge garage, but here in Southern IL, the word shed encompasses many buildings ) and made repairs where needed.  It is such a blessing to know someone who can fix things.  Anyhow, after working with this semi paste for a couple of weeks, I knew there HAD to be an easier way.  And if there wasn't, I was throwing in the towel.  So I talked to an expert, another friend, Stan, from church.  He refinishes furniture as a hobby.  He told me LIQUID stripper worked best.  A little steel wool, dip it right in the liquid and rub away.  Much, much faster.  The stripper was really strong so I ended up using three pairs of latex gloves on each hand.  If it got on my skin, it really burned.  Thankfully, no trips to the hospital were necessary.  If I did get it on my bare skin, I just rinsed it off right away.  

After getting as much as I wanted of the original stain off, I let it dry, then sanded a little more, then put three layers of polyurethane on it.  This was easy, and Mark, my husband, helped me get this done.  It was a spray!!!  So it went quickly.  

So it is done now.  I did not get it done quite in time for her birthday, but it was fairly close.  If I had not been trying to repaint her room at the same time, I might have got it done in time.  As usual, I over scheduled myself.

Thanks!