How I Refinished my Mail Center


This piece has been in the family for awhile. My mom had used some sort of whitewash or stain technique on it. I repainted it with latex paint.

 


When deciding to repaint it again I chose to strip the old paint off rather than adding a third layer and potentially having paint that peels. 


My go to product for paint stripping is Citristrip. It is a natural product that works fast and has a nice citrusy smell, although strong. It's safe to use indoors too. You know like when you've dragged your big piece of furniture out onto the deck and then the wind starts blowing in that ominous way that means rain and you then have to drag it, covered in goo, back into the house. Just saying, it would be okay if that happened. 

I brushed on the orangy goo. Wandered off to work on another project and about an hour later started to scrape off the paint with my plastic scraper. Most of the paint came off easily or with just a little muscle. Some areas needed more vigorous work. I scraped and scraped and scraped until the finish beneath was showing. Along with some really large Mary Engelbreight stickers my mom had put on. Oh yeah, that's why I just painted over everything last time. What was she thinking?

 

After dinner I came down to finish up scraping (the product continues to work until it dries-about 24 hours). You can use paint stripper or mineral oil to remove any excess gel when you are ready to stop too. I got the last little areas and called it a night. The next night I used some 100 grit sand paper to sand all the surfaces and smooth down the edges of the stickers that won't come off.


I painted the whole piece with 2 coats of black Glidden paint (color) in satin. I used a brush to get the inside edges and then rolled on the rest with a 4" roller. 
 

Once dried, I chose my dots and applied the decals to the piece. The dots help disguise the rough sticker outlines. I was going to use my Cricut to cut out vinyl dots but found these and it was totally worth it just in time saved. 

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