As usual, I can't find any good before pics, probably because I was in too much of a hurry to take any. Here's the only shot I found in which you can sort of see them: (The view is from the bedroom, looking out into the dining room.)
And here's that same view now, with the doors closed:
And from the dining-room side:
I sanded them down completely by hand, and I think I did a pretty good job of it. What sucks is that I succumbed to the temptation of a crap-o-licious "Polyshades" stain/polyurethane mix on them afterwards, and it's about as useful as watery ketchup.
Never again will I be so silly as to look for an alternative to the glorious, time-tested splendor of SHELLAC.
I do hereby solemnly swear it.
2 comments:
Were the doors painted originally? We have two 5-panel closet doors that we need to strip and refinish. I've been thinking about what to use to coat them afterwards. Maybe shellac? One of my friends have used shellac and it looks so nice...
Yes, the doors originally had at least two layers of paint on them, from what I could tell. However, they were already partially stripped when I acquired the house.
It's hard to tell in that first photo, but they basically looked like someone had applied a chemical stripper and then stopped. The paint/finish was bubbled and lifting off, so I just picked up from that point and started sanding them.
It wasn't too bad, except for the inside ridges of the panels, on which I broke/sanded off a few fingernails. :-)
As far as what to use on your doors, all I can say is that everyone always told me to use shellac, but I never tried it. I thought I could skip a step with the finish/poly mix, since I was loathe to do more intercoat abrasion. It was dumb though, because I still had to do that in between coat of the Polyshades anyway. (I put four coats.)
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