Stripping!

Hahahaha! I couldn't help myself. Obviously, I'm not talking about the scandalous type of stripping -- just the paint stripping variety ^_^

So, I bought paint stripper this afternoon. I looked at Lowe's online and read reviews.

Based on my aims for the project, the fact that I have dogs, like the environment, and my general fear of chemicals...oh, right, and the reviews...I landed on this one.


I applied it to part of one of the filing cabinets at 1:30pm. I'm going to go check it out in a second, to see if it's working (I'm currently coloring my hair - multi-tasking at its finest. Simultaneous home and self-improvement, haha)

To work on my project, I purchased the paint stripper (above), a plastic scraping tool, a small metal pail to pour the paint stripper in, and some plastic gloves.

I think I'm going to kind of set the filing cabinets into a trash bag, so as to capture the paint shavings I will be scraping off, and to make clean-up easier and more efficient. I just hope it works as well in reality as it does in theory.

*EDIT* Sorry, T - no pictures yet. Maybe in about 30 minutes. I had applied more stripper to the filing cabinet I started on, but that was around 3:00pm, and I had to leave...and didn't get home until around 10:30pm. So, as I'm sure you can imagine, the stripping stuff dried, and wasn't doing anything when I got back. So, I reapplied, and am waiting to go see what progress I can make before bed tonight.
I can say two things:
1. The paint is coming off in more of sloughs than strips, and is super easy to just scoop and throw into a grocery bag...so I'm doing that instead
2. I'm still confused as to what these filing cabinets are made out of. It appears to be a very sturdy wood...but it's still so dark. Does paint stripper not take stain off at all?

Thanks, Susan, for your vote to paint. I'll post pictures of the finished hardware (it looks AMAZING), and the stripped down filing cabinets to be considered one final time before I make my decision. I probably will go with paint...but who knows? It might be fun to try one of the Minwax White Wash Pickling Stains on them. They could be white and still show the grain. What do you think of that? Don't answer until after you've seen them stripped...I have no idea if it's even really a good option.