Chemical Stripper

Things start off with more door work of course. I last left off with the main door getting coats of shellac, except at the bottom I messed up a portion of the shellac trying to remove lap marks. I find this occurs when I rub the shellac too aggressively and then it exposes a bare patch that for some reason that patch will no longer hold any shellac when I try to re-coat it. I end up having to directly brush shellac on to the bare spot multiple times to get it to adhere and then sand it back down to match the rest of the shellac. After I get the shellac in decent shape, I flip the door and continue buffing out and sanding down the drippy stain job.

Shellac is done on this side.

After experimenting with chemical stripper in the next room, I decide to use this for the paint stripping approach. The CitriStrip gets the job done and it’s good to use up my remaining stock since I no longer will use on wood. It takes a while to get the paint loose using CitriStrip, so I alternate messing around with the door and coating and scraping the bedroom walls.

So many layers of paint in this room and no calcimine.

Using CitriStrip on each layer of paint.

On the door end, I take a look at the closet door and compare to the other bedroom. The finishes are close, but first bedroom’s door is a little more matte than what I have for the 2nd bedroom. I decide to go with another coat of satin Waterlox. Before that, I buff out the last coat with extra fine steel wool and mineral spirits.

Buffing out finish using mineral spirits.

With the door drying, the stripper melting away paint, I do another side job by hanging up some pictures in the attic. I’ve been assembling a bunch of decorations, but with all the work, I’ve neglected to start hanging them up around the finished or nearly finished rooms.

Hanging some pictures.

After the mineral spirits dries, I apply another coat of satin Waterlox to the door with t-shirt material and make sure there’s no streaks. I leave the first one side to dry and will hit the other side next weekend to avoid messing up the drying finish. In the room, after many applications of stripper I’m starting to break things down to the plaster. At this point I start mixing up buckets of TSP and water to start scrubbing off the smaller chunks of paint on the wall.

Final satin coat.

Washing things down with TSP.

Starting to get to bare plaster.

The doors awaiting more work next weekend.