a fresh start

I'd posted a while ago about how I wanted to reupholster a chair seat and then refinish this hideous little child's desk turned accent table and I've finally gotten around to putting up the pictures!

Here's the chair before and after:

Here's the table from start to finish:

1. The original: What you can't see here is the peaking through of pink paint and grime on it and the sticky something all over the bottom of the legs. Eww! Note the smiley faces, stars and old hardware.
2. Getting all the supplies meant thick gloves, chemical stripper, a stipper wash to neutralize afterward, putty knives, natural bristle brushes, thick tarps, and buckets. Here's what I used:


3. Applying the stripper and letting it sit was amazing. It bubbled right up and revealed the layers of paint underneath I didn't imagine. Then you just use the putty knife to remove the now thick but malleable paint layers. Continue all the way around the table to get ever inch

The paint immediately bubbles up
After scraping off the layers of paint on the backside of the table:
Stripping the top of the table which had the most paint and lots of blue paint underneath! Thank you hubs for wanting to capture this lovely and flattering momentHere's all the stripped off paint in my handy bucket, yuck!
4. Use steel wool dipped in stripper to get remaining paint off of hard to get places. Ta-da!


5. Rinse with stipper wash, let set, sand and prep for a refinishing

6. Repaint and add new hardware! We used a warm gray, added some dark brushed knobs, and sanded a few areas down for a slightly distressed look (And in that little white frame is some scrap fabric from recovering the chair)