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How To Easily Remove Paint & Varnish From Old Furniture!

Paint a very thick coat of the (affiliateCitristrip on your wood surface. Be very liberal in your application. Don’t worry about using too much. I’m so frugal when it comes to paint supplies and it took me a minute to ‘let it go.’ But it was kinda fun. 
Make sure to get into every nook and crannies on your piece. The paint won’t remove unless there has been product directly applied to it. Since it’s so thick, I ‘painted’ the remover on the legs and sides and it didn’t budge too much.

how to easily remove paint varnish from old furniture

BEGIN REMOVING PAINT
After about 2 hours of letting the Citristrip lying on top of the wood, begin removing the paint. Start off easy and use plastic putty knives.

how to easily remove paint varnish from old furniture

You can see how the paint and varnish came right off. I thought it was pretty cool. The wood is still wet underneath and will be for at least 12 hours after you’ve finished removing the paint.
Use clean cloths to wipe up paint and residue as you go. Otherwise you’ll end up with paint pieces all over the floor and you don’t want to be stepping in them.

how to easily remove paint varnish from old furniture

Use wire brushes to go over any nooks and crannies. Because I had so much wax on some surfaces, I needed to use additional paint remover.

how to easily remove paint varnish from old furniture

DEEP CLEAN!
Finally, your furniture looks almost too perfect to paint over.   I even told my husband, “Wow, who knew ours would look so good?”
Using your cloths, wipe down your item. Then, using an orbit sander, sand over the entire piece using a fine grit sand paper.
Be sure to be firm while sanding and still going in the moving in the general direction of the wood.

how to easily remove paint varnish from old furniture

And here it is ready to be finished for the next project!
See the final [painted] project over on my blog!