What you need to know: Using oven cleaner to strip furniture

Using oven cleaner to strip furniture is all over the internet right now and I had to try this method out for myself.

I’ve tried all kinds of different furniture stripping agents, but the biggest thing I cant stand is the goop and how in the world to dispose of said goop.

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Then this magical unicorn method of using oven cleaner to strip furniture came around, and I wanted to take my own turn.

I found the most perfect furniture piece to make new again.

supplies you’ll need

• Oven cleaner
• Heavy duty gloves
• Eye protection
• Respirator/ mask
• Wire brush
• Access to water (garden hose would be most ideal)
• Sander
• 100, 220, 320 grit sand paper
• Polyurethane

The How

You’ll definitely want to take this project outside because of the fumes and the garden hose probably shouldn’t make its way into your home. (May seem a little obvious, but my self conscious would feel much better having said this.)

Spray your piece down with the oven cleaner and let it sit for at least 30 minutes.

I used a plastic scrub brush at first, but felt the wire brush worked so much better.

Spray down the piece with the hose.

I found that I needed to scrub again and hose a little more.

Instantly I could tell that using the oven cleaner to strip furniture was actually working, so I sprayed the piece again and repeated the scrubbing and hosing off process.

Then I let the furniture piece dry and in the morning I was shocked at how well the piece looked.

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After the furniture piece is dry.

I used 100, then 220, and last 320 grit sand paper to take the last little bits of the stain off of the piece and make the whole thing smooth.

Personally I loved the way the natural wood looked and decided to just use polyurethane instead of staining first.

I put a total of three coats of polyurethane on the piece sanding in between coats.

Overall thoughts about using the oven cleaner as furniture stripper.

For this particular piece, the over cleaner method worked really well.

I felt like the process went a lot quicker than using other furniture stripping methods.

I was a little concerned about hosing a piece of wood furniture with water, but even this old piece handled it just fine.

I’ll definitely try the oven cleaner method again on future furniture pieces as well.

Love seeing new life given to old things, check out a few of my friends!

New Again

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