In my last post about the bookshelf, I left you with the shelves mostly stripped.
I had my husband help me move the shelf, so that we could put down a new drop cloth because the one I was using was completely trashed. I put another coat of stripper and plastic on it and scraped it again with my handy little detail scraper. I also scrubbed with a little detail brush and mineral spirits and wiped that off with shop towels. And here’s how it looked after that.
Even my husband said that I was finished with stripping at this point, so all that was left to do was to scrub it with scotch brite pads and mineral spirits to ensure that I got all of the stripper removed. It took me a few days to work up to doing this because I expected it to be AWFUL, but it really wasn’t bad at all.
So now I need my husband to help me get the last of the paint out of the corners–there’s not much, but I don’t have the hand strength it requires to do it. Once that is done, I can start sanding it smooth, which I don’t expect to be too bad because it’s all pretty much flat. Then a couple of coats of sandable primer. I will put one coat of topcoat on before we install it and then another coat once everything is put together–top, molding, baseboard–and caulked.
We will have to test fit the doors before we finalize everything to ensure that the openings are square and plumb. We won’t install the doors for good until we get all the bracketry installed and the shelves. I’m expecting to get those back around the beginning of September. Once I have those back, I’ll sand everything well and prime it and paint it before we install them so that we don’t have the goopy mess that they made when they painted the insides of the cabinets with them installed.
I checked the doors, and I do think that I’ll be able to lightly sand them and mask the glass, and then have my husband spray them. They were painted much more carefully than the cabinet.
Anyway, still lots to do, but I feel encouraged.
Cathy At Home on the River 