Refinishing Our Kitchen Cabinets - Day 16

Okay, so I know that I said I was superstitious about doing the stripping of the cabinets, but I am less nervous about that and more nervous about not having these done in time for the new floors to be installed.  I know what you must be thinking, "how do drawers impact your floors?"

I'll tell you how.  Because without things on the floors, like a dining room table and a buffet, we aren't going to have places to keep all of our drawer stuff, and since everything that is currently on the floor will shortly be in the garage temporarily, that would mean we will very likely be eating in the garage if I don't get these things done, just so we can have access to the silverware.

Ok.  So, here goes.

 First things first.  You see that streak across the left lens of these safety goggles?  Yes?  THAT IS STRIPPER!  Now imagine what that would do to your EYE.  So, safety first.  Wear goggles.  (I don't remember when this happened, but I do remember that it is stripper . . . so I must have stripped something at some point.)

And some other tools.  Along with the actual stripper, a chip brush, and mineral spirits, these are my starting point.  So let's do this thing!

This is the drawer.

 The stripper is thick and pasty, but it does drip.  Having just gotten a streak of polyurethane on my leg that lasted as a brown reminder for a week, I wore my work jeans despite the heat.  (Polyurethane is sticky and doesn't wash off even with pumice once it sets, but stripper is stripper.  I like my skin where it is, thank you.)

These are two more of the drawers so you can see the process unfold on half the project.  (Not that the other half is secret, it was just on the other side of the garage.  I was willing to turn the tripod, but not move it.)

 Once the stripper set for a while (I coated them all and then just went back to the beginning) I scraped it off of of the flat faces with a scraper,

 brushed the harder to reach places with a stiff bristle angled brush,

 and cleaned the remainder with mineral spirits and a rough scraping pad.  (I should have used steel wool, SPF tells me now.  Which makes sense because the rough, green pad is now basically in tatters.)

Once these were all prepped as best as I can do them with the chemicals, I left them to dry and moved to the inside project.

THE CABINET FACE

 Oh, the short sightedness!  Oh, the lost opportunity!  Oh, the incredibly difficult job that lies ahead.

Blarg.

No use crying about things you can't go back and do right.  You can, however, do it right now.  So here is my tool set.  Yep.  Just the sanding block and 150 grit paper.

 Cut to size.

 And locked in place.  I got this.

I don't got this.  This set of images does not belie the amount of time, effort, muscle strain, and stiff knees that went into this moderate progress.  Alas, I am afraid to use stripper because of the stain on the left side of this cabinet and the paint on the right.  I am afraid to use a belt sander because I'm convinced I would go too deep, which I cannot recover from.  So, I think, over the next several days I will be sanding as much as I can, when I can.  And maybe I'll treat myself to a massage at the end of the week.  Or the end of next week.  Or the end of August.  You get my drift.