Tuesday we finished stripping all the wood in the “former kitchen”. That makes it two weeks from when we started, and we don’t work Wednesdays or weekends and also took days off to work on restoring hardware. Granted it is probably one-third of the wood in the back bedroom, but that room took a year of struggling, giving up, forgetting how hard it was, struggling again and finally finishing. I think I must have gone over every piece of wood in that room three times to get all the paint off. The difference? I finally nailed down a method that works and found the right tools for the job.

My procedure for stripping paint from molding that is still on the wall

This process assumes we will be staining molding and painting walls.

All of our molding has several layers of paint and was never varnished. You may find it takes less time for stripper to work, but we wait 24 hours.

This process starts first thing in the morning and finishes the next morning around noon.

Tools





Stripping gloves (the heavy duty ones you find by the stripper at the hardware store – don’t skimp -you can get serious burns)

Disposable nitrile gloves (optional, but I wear them under the stripping gloves)

Safety glasses (you don’t want this stuff in your eyes either)

Painter’s Tape (the wider the better)

Citristrip Stripping Gel (I get the big one and go through a lot of it)

Citristrip Paint Stripper After Wash (to remove any residue. You could probably use mineral spirits, but I haven’t tried it)

Disposable pie tin or other container for holding stripper

paint brush (I use a 2″ natural brush)

small piece of plastic wrap (wrapping the brush means you don’t have to clean the citristrip out every time)

1″ putty knife

Nylon brushes ( I have a stripper tool that has a big nylon brush on it and a plastic scraper on the other end and a tooth brush size that came in a set of 3 with a brass and stainless steel brush. I learned the hard way to only use the nylon one)

Bamboo skewers

small long nail (optional)

spray bottle ( got mine in the gardening section)

91% isopropyl alcohol (a cheaper alternative to denatured alcohol, I buy several every time I am in Walmart. I don’t use 80%, it has too much water)

Rags (I reuse shop rags until they are so filthy I can’t anymore)

Clean lint free knit rags for final wipe down

Procedure

Prepare work area. Remove any hardware from area, including light switch and outlet covers that might be near by.

Apply 2″ or wider painter’s tape to walls adjacent to molding to reduce damage. This will not completely prevent stripper from softening wall paint, but it will reduce the damage and subsequent repair work.

Cover the floor near by. I use newspaper, but I am planning to repair or replace the floor, so I don’t mind if the stripper makes the paper stick to the floor. Use thick plastic and tape it down if you want to preserve your floor. Apply first coat of Citristrip (we usually do just the crown molding, the rest of window or door, or about 8-12 ft of baseboard at a time so the stripping takes about 2-4 hours) Dump a large blob of Citristrip gel into the pie pan.

Apply liberally to molding with paintbrush. You should be able to see thick orange on every surface

When finished wrap paintbrush in plastic wrap for next time. Spray everything you just coated with a fine mist of alcohol every 3-6 hours to keep the gel moist and working. After 12 hours, the top layer of paint will be wrinkled and lifted from the wood. For us, the deeper layers are still attached, so we apply a second thinner layer of Citristrip over everything and a thick layer over any parts that aren’t bubbly. Leave it overnight and spray it down with alcohol first thing in the morning. It is now ready to strip. Strip paint off of wood. Score edges between wall and molding with putty knife

Use putty knife to lift off one continuous piece of gooey paint from all curved areas, when possible

I hold a piece of newspaper in my other hand to dump paint and wipe off putty knife.

After removing as much of the loose paint as possible, spray surface with alcohol and wipe with old rag. Trouble spots will remain and need more attention.

Scrub area with nylon brushes to try and loosen as much as possible. Wipe off again with rag.

Use bamboo skewers to dig paint out of remaining curves. Use putty knife to get between molding pieces.

Keep working until you see no remnants of paint, then spray with alcohol and wipe down one more time. Using a clean rag, apply Citristrip Stripper After Wash to all surfaces. Carefully remove tape from wall and evaluate damage. Some paint may be soft and stick to tape. I did a lot of damage in the first room before I started using tape, and I just painted over the low spots. They are not terribly noticeable, but I do plan to use paint-able caulk this time to fix those places. Clean any spots of citristrip/paint residue on wall with alcohol and a rag. Alcohol will probably discolor paint, but I wouldn’t attempt this without planning on painting the room afterward.

The biggest tip I found on the internet was using the isopropyl alcohol to keep the Citristrip working. Before I found that, I would re apply the stripper 2 or 3 times to keep it wet and working.

Forcing myself to wait 24 hours has also helped a lot. When I was waiting ~16 hours, it was still a lot of work to scrape paint off. Now it just lifts off with very little work.

Now that the stripping is done, I will start sanding…