Refinishing a piece of furniture

[protege]

Once I have removed the paint, I will not repaint it, unless it really looks necessary. I'd rather stain it. It all depends on the way the wood looks.

Be prepared to do a lot of sanding when you get the paint off. Some types of paint stripper tend to "bring out" (raise) the wood's grain slightly...which can lead to a rippled finish. A power sander, or a paper sanding disc in a drill, will make short work of that. So will those foam sanding blocks meant for drywall. Stained wood looks awesome when finished, and protected with a coat or two of clear

[wolfie]

a paper sanding disc in a drill, will make short work of that.

I'd steer clear of those. They remove material fast, but can't get into corners, have the risk of the disk edge "digging in", and you still need to hand sand to get rid of the circular sanding marks. Unless you're experienced with power sanders, I'd say hand sand the whole thing.

[protege]

The only reason I used those discs, was that I had a crapload of them left over from when I worked on the car. My grandmother wanted to refinish her porch glider, so I used them. Not entirely, mind you. No, I used them to remove most of the 52 layers of varnish and stains that had been applied over the years. Once that crap was gone, I used a power sander (basically a vibrating rubber pad wrapped with sandpaper) or rubber sanding blocks to level out the surface.