Scr*w the Timetable!

Every time Lisa asks, "When are we going to do the kitchen?" I always answer, "LAST!" because we always come and go through the kitchen door and I want all the other messes finished before we do it!

I came home yesterday from the office to see Lisa grinning like the Cheshire Cat. For the last few days she's been on "vacation" which means she was stripping doors.

"Go in the kitchen." she said. When I walked in I saw this:


Which when I looked closer was this:


If you see the "babyshit brown" color on the table leg, that is what all the woodwork in the kitchen is painted. I am nearly finished repainting the cupboard doors, and will hang the last of them tonight. (Imagine that brown on the outside and signal orange on the inside of the cupboards. Lisa reapainted the insides even before we moved in two years ago) The top of the table was that color too, until yesterday. What you see is how it looks after stripper, but no sanding. It was originally painted, but we'll go ahead and stain and varnish since it looks so good. Now we'll see if we can strip the bench and get as good a results.

So last night after getting the kids to bed and taking the dog for a walk I was inspired to try to take the formica off the counter top and see how the original pine top looked. So I peeled off the edge:


And started peeling off the top:


It wasn't too long and I was down to the plywood that covered the original top:


I got out the cordless drill and a mere 76 screws later had the plywood off:


It looks as though the original was shellacked then varnished and in spots the varnish failed and then of course the shellac would too in short order, so it all got covered up. Lisa started cleaning with hot water and TSP:


Here's the end that's down to bare wood:


And another shot


Maybe this was just an extreme way to clean all the junk off the couter?


Ideally if I can get the entire top off there is a cabinet maker in town that I could take it to and run through his planer to take just the very top edge off and get it looking good. Anyone out there do this? What are suggestions as to what to finish it with? I'd love to hear your ideas.