Back to Nature

The project for last few days has been to remove the old extremely dark stain from our bedroom closet door. We previously tested a stripping agent called "Multi-Strip Pro" with success, so we removed the door from the closet to continue removing more of the stain.




I know it looks messy, but this stain/paint stripper is very low odor, and cleans up really easily with water. The only messy part is the stain itself. We did crack the window while working as there is a bit of an odor when using a lot of the stripper at once. We wore face masks and eye goggles as well as chemical resistant gloves for safety. The stain remover remained on the door 24 hours prior to gently scraping it off and scrubbing off the stain. A lot of scrubbing pads were necessary so that we did not rub the stain back into the wood, but in fact remove it before cleaning the remainder up with water.

This is how the door looked initially after all the stripper was removed. At this stage, the wood is still wet and would be left to dry for several hours.






We left the door to dry overnight. The result was a bare-wood natural finish. Some of the door was still drying when the following photographs were taken. Some areas of the wood are darker than others based on the way the stain took to the door differently in other areas. This doesn't pose a problem at all. We will gently sand the door prior to refinishing it with a new golden stain. The natural discrepancies in the color of the wood will add to the character and beauty of the refinished door.










Here is a picture of the door as it was when we purchased the property to demonstate the before and after.