I have a lot of projects sitting waiting to be finished in our garage. I have had my childhood dresser and a small bookshelf for awhile and decided it would be fitting to restore these to fit in the nursery. We are doing a woodland themed nursery which will be an entire post coming soon! Restoring the bookshelf was a small project that didn’t take long to complete. I forgot to take a before picture and didn’t realize it until I was already almost done stripping the paint off the top. Oops!
I originally attempted to use a power sander to sand the top; however, this was taking entirely too long. I decided to try CitriStrip Stripping Gel to assist in removing this coat of paint and polyurethane. I originally left it on for about hour and left it open to air. This did not work at all. So I tried applying a thicker coat of the stripping gel and then covered it with plastic and left it overnight. This worked much better. After letting it sit I used a metal scraper to get the excess residue off. The CitriStrip does leave a residue on the wood as you can see in the photos above. I used mineral spirits and sanding to remove this and clean the wood.
After the wood was dry used Varathane Premium Wood Stain. I used the color Briarsmoke. This stain goes on very thick, so I applied and then immediately wiped with a rag so the wood underneath would really show up. It is definitely a very good quality stain; however, it applies differently than classic stains I have used. One coat was all that was needed. After it was dry I used a power sander to get it distressed a little more.
I added an additional coat of white to the base of the bookshelf to help with touch ups. After everything was dry I applied one coat of polyurethane. I have really liked the Minwax Fast Drying Polyurethane. I think its a great product and leaves a really nice finish to all projects.
