No Talent for Stripping

Talk about a loaded title, eh? Now get your mind out of the gutter. I'm still working on renovating the bathroom, on the cheap since money is always in short supply. Hence the stripping. I never considered it would be such hard work! I've had the drawers and doors off the vanity for two weeks now, working up to getting to work on the whole stripping thing; let me rephrase: refinishing thing. The vanity cabinet is home made, I have no idea how old, just that it's in decent shape but for the poor varnish job. I've undertaken to refinishing rather than replacing the cabinet since I haven't been able to find what I want to put in its place, and what has come close has been ridiculously expensive and not even made of real wood.

Let me tell you this: doing the preparation work prior to applying the lovely new finish I picked out is going to take a LOT of time and effort and energy, some of which aren't always readily available. So far I've got two door down to bare wood (I hope) and a third is about half done. I started by sanding but that was taking forever and wasn't terrifically effective, so hubby pulled out the chemicals for the shed. Eeeek! The very stuff I've been hoping to avoid. Granted it worked faster with much less effort. But you know me, Mrs. As-Natural-and-Organic-as-Possible. I'm realizing that sometimes I need to bend my rules, for the sake of my own sanity. The grooves were especially difficult to deal with. I may have to come up with a different plan for actual cabinet which is attached to the wall. I really don't think I will be able to use that wood stripper inside without frying about a gazillion brain cells. I'll try to employ hubby's ancient palm sander for that job.

I've been exceedingly lazy in updating this blog, although there's been lots to write about. Complete updates soon. Honest.