I promised a few of my bloggy friends a “how-to” on refinishing outdated cabinets.  So, here goes.

Start with ugly, orange, builder cabinets.  If you can do this in the garage, I highly recommend it.  It’s cold and rainy here, so I opted to do this in my hallway.  It’s a really smelly job! I put down a big piece of cardboard.  Don’t use newspaper.  This stuff is really sticky and the newspaper is just a disaster waiting to happen.

Paint stripper onto the cabinets and let sit.  It says to let it sit for 15-30 minutes, but I found that if I waited any longer than 15 minutes, the stuff was too dry and I had to reapply.  I used a cheap disposable brush and bought a clean paint can to pour the stripper into.

If you are stripping something with lots of varathane, you will see it bubble like this.

Most of my cabinets did not have much varathane left, so I couldn’t really see the bubbling.

Once it’s done sitting for 15 minutes, use a plastic scrapper to scrape it off.  I did a second round of stripper, after that, to remove any stain still on the wood.  That’s it.  It’s really simple.  The only annoying part is that I always forget that I haven’t done the back side of the doors.

We’ll talk sanding, staining, and varathane soon!

Happy stripping!  (That just doesn’t sound right.)