Stripping Paint: 101

We decided to strip the paint off our front door. After almost 100 years this door has held up well, but has been through its share of paint jobs!

So, while Ben was perched in our tree (scared silly i'm sure, but showing great bravery) cutting down a big ol' branch...




...I took on the job of the mighty door.




I started off by painting a thick coat of this citrus gel and letting it sit for a couple hours. After a couple hours it began to bubble and was ready (according to directions) to be scraped off with a plastic or metal scraper. However it turned out to be a lot tougher to strip the paint off than I had anticipated. So, I put on another thick coat of citrus gel, using the entire container for just the front of the door and let it sit... overnight.


In the morning I went at the door again and found that it was one of the MESSIEST jobs I've ever done. GOOP, everywhere!


I went by the hardware store to buy more of the citrus gel because still, after all that messy work, I needed more of it. The sweet shop worker suggested that I invest in a heat gun for stripping paint. A what? A gun? Turns out a heat gun is easier to use, less messy, and since we will be stripping a lot of paint throughout the house it would be a great investment. I was SOLD.

Of course when the door stripping job involved using a gun Ben jumped on board! Turns out that I wish we had used the gun from the very start.






Next step: Stripping the paint off of the window frames... who in the world chose the lime green paint? No thank you.