Never Again!!

A warning to everyone on the interweb:  NEVER trust a diy blog that tells you stripping paint is simple.  NEVER.   It's all lies and deceit conjured up by craigslist and stain companies to sell more product.  Trust.  

Can you tell I'm slightly disgruntled?  Here is the run down if you haven't already guessed.  I ran across a tutorial showing how to strip paint and this lady made it look so easy!  She was even doing it in her beautiful living room that was no doubt all handmade!  

Like a dumb fish in this sea of diy knowledge on the Internet, I took the bait and found this little beauty on craigslist, and got work.  Look at all that pea soup green goodness.  It's actually a solid mahogany desk, so it had potential.  

Luckily, I knew that doing this stripping project in my living room was not such a good idea, so I headed to my garage and got to work.  First step:  slather on a jelly like substance, wait a couple hours and then lightly scrape it off.  The first scrapes came off pretty easy and I had high hopes.  Unfortunately, it didn't last long; this thing was a beast!  

After hours of applying and scraping goop the desk looked liked this.  At this point I just had to sand, sand and sand to get the rest of the stain off.  

In the end, I stained it dark walnut, and although it was a nightmare, I think it turned out nice.  It's for Jack and he loves it.  Next time around I'll just buy a desk.