Butler's Pantry - Refinish & Rebuild

What a great pantry. Hard to imagine someone would paint it.

-- We must guard our enthusiasm as we would our life - James Krenov

Paul -

our refinished butler’s pantry is gorgous! I like the old growth fir.

-- http://foldingrule.blogspot.com

I’m glad you brought this beautiful wood out from under the paint and formica.

-- Jesus is Lord!

oh my !!! BEAUTIFUL.

I think people decided to paint the wood as a sign of $$$$ and/or being “modern” in that era.

I’m glad to see that we are back to wood.

-- "Functional WoodArt" by Debbie, Canada (http://www.execulink.com/~yohan)

Very nice redo. You must be quite handy. jockmike

-- Mike. Profisher50@yahoo.com

Excellent redo!

-- You can discover more about a person in an hour of play than in a year of conversation. (Plato)

Great job. I always like real wood in its natural state.

I had an Arts and Crafts house built in 1905 in St Louis. All of the oak woodwork was painted. And paint stripper wouldn’t cut it. So we did the next best thing. Our paint on top.

Looks great.

-- Karson Southern Delaware karson_morrison@bigfoot.com †

Stripping paint is a beautiful thing. I’ve recently done some old (antique?) pieces that had multiple layers of white and powder blue paint that surely had lead levels beyond belief. Thankfully, the Peel-Away type of remover just made the stuff slough off in a slimy layer with just some easy scraping and without any dust whatsoever or other messy byproduct.

What product did you use for the removal? Then, what finish did you use to make it look so nice?

Beautiful!!

My wife is the great stripper – HA!

Seriously, she is extremely patient – here is her process:

1. She uses a heat gun and a 5-in-1 tool to remove the bulk of the paint – moving quickly to avoid burning the paint or the wood.
2. Liberally paint on chemical stripper – let it work for a few minutes
3. Use steel wool dipped in more chemical stripper to remove the paint/varnish/stain
4. Repeat steps 2 and 3 several more times using a dental tool and/or an old toothbrush to remove residue from joints, details, and cracks

Be prepared to use a lot of stripper and steel wool

When she is done the wood is like glass, and looks fabulous whether it is the Old Growth Fir or the Quarter Sawn White Oak. We like the natural color variations of the fir, so we just varnish it. When I have to use new fir to repair or replace some trim we stain it to match the darker tone of the Old Growth Fir. On the 100 year old Quarter Sawn White Oak we use a Medium Walnut Tung Oil (hand rubbed) to get the warm tone we like. When I have to repair or replace the QSWO we stain it with a Dark Walnut Gel Stain and then sand the majority of the stain away and then use the hand rubbed Medium Walnut Tung Oil with several coats of varnish.

I will post a project or two showing the stripping process, and I will create a post of the QSWO staircase we disassembled, stripped and rebuilt (including 24 replicated balusters and 2 replicated newel posts.

-- Paul, St Louis, MO, www.paulheirendt.com

Paul – Our household seems to work the same way, Susie has the best paitence for stripping. With paint she uses a carbide blade scraper, old finsh she uses a liquid stripper.

She doesn’t/ hasn’t used a heat gun; how well does that work?

The butler turned out beautifully. Lot of treasures out there waiting under paint for someone to release them. Glad to see you and your wife have the paitence to let the wood shine again. I will try your formula for QSWO, I have always struggled to get that right color to match the old wood when a repair is needed.

We like to go to auctions and pickup pieces that may ultimately end up on the burn pile and make something someone will cherish. I have posted a few here in past projects

-- Joel Tille

Very nicely done. It is so wonderful to see these pieces back to their original state.Thank you so much for posting.

God Bless
tom

-- Mc Bridge Cabinets, Iowa