Stripping Furniture In-Depth: Our Bed

This is part two of my series on refinishing our new bed. To start from the beginning, follow the list below.

Part 2 – Stripping Furniture In-Depth

Part 4 – Bleaching Wood 3 Ways | Tackling Color

Part 5 – Achieving a Natural, Raw Wood Finish

AND, I’ve got you covered in video format too. Be sure to subscribe to my YouTube channel where I show you this project from start to finish.

I promised you I would break down how I went from left to right on this bed. It was a process that involved detours, but I learned a lot. I documented each day of the stripping portion, diary-style. Then after the stripping process, I’ll detail how I got the color I wanted.

Enjoy!

Starting the Process

I did something I swore I would never do again: use Citristrip wood stripper.

You see, two years ago, when my Bermuda shutters began peeling a day after being hung, and sanding did not seem to be possible on all those little louvers, I decided to strip. The end result was a ridiculously goupy, tacky mess that was practically impossible to clean out of all of those nooks and crannies. I cried and cursed that stuff. I would never use it again…

And I should listen to myself. I should heed my poor, frustrated, goo- covered, ready to cry past self. And yet, my impatient, “I want to get this done in the warmer garage”, “I’m more experienced now” self won out. My current self even had some support to back me up in the form of YouTube experts that swear by this product. My younger self clearly just didn’t use it right. This time will be different.

But oh boy, famous last words!

Now if you use Citristrip and love it – awesome! I’m not here to say it doesn’t work, it just doesn’t work for me. I’ve spent more time cleaning up my issues with it than I care to admit. So go with what you know. However, I can’t recommend it based on my personal experience.

Day 1

My problem with Citristrip in the past came from it drying out a bit. You need to let it sit long enough for it to have time to work, but not too long that it dries out. Once it dries out it becomes really tough to work with. Further, I really needed the muscle of the stripper on the turned posts where it would be harder to sand down the finish. So I watched several YouTube videos on the process, got all my supplies ordered and ready for pick up (boy do I love the pickup lockers at Home Depot and Lowes), and headed home ready to tackle this baby!

I slathered on the stripper, trying to be as generous as possible, then wrapped it up and called it a night.

Day 2

Unfortunately, I woke with a migraine and a ticking time bomb in the garage. I knew I would have to push through it because I couldn’t let it sit and risk it drying out.

I’d forgotten how sloppy this job was. But I kept at it. My process was to peel a bit of the plastic back, scrape off the sludge with the scraper, use the nylon brush and steel wool with additional stripper to work off any tacky parts or get in little crevices, then use mineral spirits on both a clean rag and clean steel wool to clean off the piece.

I went through the whole stripping process on the footboard, a little at a time. But now I’m definitely concerned about the splotchiness on the wood, which I think is from the plastic. I’m hoping another night under plastic will hit different spots to start getting this evened out.

Day 3

Today I started off full of energy. No migraine, and an afternoon with no committments. The entire back of the footboard had been sitting in stripper and plastic for almost 24 hours for the second time. I began peeling it back, portion by portion, and running it through the process of scraping, steel wooling, using nylon brush and skewer, then cleaning with mineral spirits. Since I wasn’t going to put on another layer of stripper, I was excited to see the wood sit and dry out a bit. One great thing is that I had pretty good luck with getting the gunk cleaned off, which meant I had confidence to let it dry.

But as I worked my way across the flat portion, I realized that the splotchy lines were still there. I had a couple of ideas to try, but first I had to do the tricky legs and spindles. With my too-large gloves and saran-wrapped finger, I had trouble really scrubbing into the spindles. Everything was slippery. I finally resorted to just using a lot of mineral spirits so that I could get as much of the gunk off as possible. I remembered from working on my shutters that dried gunk was the real enemy! Grain on turned wood like that always takes stain darker, so I knew the stripped spindle would be trickier than the rest of the bed. I then needed to decide whether I should apply more stripper to them to let them sit overnight.

The stripper is tacky, but still very pink. It’s not pulling any more stain off.

In the meantime, though, I wanted to troubleshoot the splotches. I tested two areas. On the first, I applied another coat without the plastic and just kept an eye on it to make sure it didn’t dry out. On my second trial spot that had started drying, I tested out my sander. I had 220 grit sandpaper, but it seemed to do nothing. I had no 120, so I tried just a bit of 80 in an inconspicuous spot and it still did nothing. My spirits were falling.

You can see the splotchiness on the top and bottom

I then tried some coarser steel wool with a lot of elbow grease and mineral spirits, but that also seemed to have no effect, Lastly, I tried a bit of denatured alcohol. And still nothing. With those hopes dashed, I started scraping trial spot #1 as it had started becoming just a tad tacky. But as I scraped it off, the sludge was pretty much all pink, so it wasn’t really taking any stain off. The splotchiness was still there. So with that, I decided to call it a day. I’m really not sure which way to go next and am frustrated. I’ve decided to sleep on it.

Day 4

Not much was accomplished today, aside from some test sanding. With the wood dried, I pulled out my new orbital sander and tested the area over the splotches again. The area sanded down as expected, but the splotches were still visible like bleach stains. At this point, I knew I needed to change course.

I ordered a fresh set of supplies: KwikStrip, new (better fitting, hole-free) gloves, a new chipbrush, and some enthusiasm. Here’s hoping I can turn this around.

Day 5

I’ve moved from my attached garage to my workshop and I’m already enjoying it so much more! My work area is raised and sturdy, I have more room to move around the piece, and there is way more light. I’m feeling ready to go!

I worked on this today in 3 short periods. I decided to start with a clean slate on the front of the footboard to feel like I’ve made some progress today. In my first stint, I just did a small corner. And that was all it took to feel MUCH better! There really is no comparison. The spot below left sat in KwikStrip for 15 minutes. For comparison, the spot on the right sat overnight in the Citristrip. And the KwikStrip is much, much less sticky than the Citristrip, which means it much easier to work with and clean off.

Day 6

Today I wanted to focus on cleaning up the footboard. I needed to do a little more stripping on the posts, and I wanted to troubleshoot the back again. I started by putting new stripper down on one end. After 15 minutes or so, I went to scrape it off, and the stripper was practically clear, which meant that there wasn’t much point to using more stripper. So, I left that part to dry and started sanding on the other end. The good news is, the sanding is working to get the uneven-ness worked out where the plastic made lines. Granted, it’s taking a LOT of work and patience, but thankfully it seems fixable.

The bad news is, I have splotches that cannot be sanded out. They seem to sand away, but then they reappear. So I’ve done a bit of research on this and my best conclusions are that they are almost like a mold from the wood not drying quickly enough, or there are tannin or rust stains, potentially caused by tiny pieces of steel wool left behind. I’m need to make more changes to my process

Day 7

Today I put aside the footboard and decided to start with a clean slate on the headboard. After a marathon session, I was able to finish the stripping on it! To start, I made the following changes on my process based on my stain issues on the footboard:

I’ve stopped using steel wool, and this is a welcome change! Steel wool seemed to ball up too quickly which made it harder to manipulate. I felt like I was constantly reaching for a new piece. Instead, I grabbed some of these. They lasted much longer, and because they held their shape, I was able to easily use them in weird spots. I wrapped it around the curved pieces and could put some good pressure on to work into the wood. I also used the edges a bit like dental floss to get into the grooves of the finials.
I paid close attention to moisture and drying. I had plastic wrap laying on my workbench, which obviously keeps the surface damp. So the part underneath could get wet from drips or previous spills, and I may not see it and wipe it away fast enough. A better set up would probably be to use plastic wrap on the ground, and then lay the headboard on sawhorses, as I had in the beginning. As soon as I was done working, I stood the piece up, and then I carried it into my warmer, less humid house to dry.

My Final Process

After all that trial and error with strippers and supplies, I’ve found what works best for me. And I’ve detailed it all in my next post on my perfected stripping process.

After a very exhausting afternoon, we brought the headboard inside to dry. I feel like I’ve gotten this stripping process down! Next up: cleaning up my mistakes from my learning phase and moving on to color and finish.