Success! Beginning to End.

On the book stand/shelf.  PRAISE. It's done, over, and I love it.

If you have been following this is the bookshelf that I wanted to strip and re-stain.  This color just doesn't really compliment the retro style of this piece of furniture!

Before:

I thought that the paint would be fairly fresh considering the section of the antique store I found it in.  Everything was shabby chic and painted this blue or white, so I assumed it would be somewhat easy to remove.  Well I was SO WRONG.  I started using my power sander thinking it would take about an hour to just sand all the paint off.  Well I was SO WRONG.  I ended up going to the hardware store and got some STRONG paint stripper.  So total time of sanding and stripping = 10 hours.  I also burned several inches of my skin due to the harsh chemicals.

This is when I gave up:

So D-Money found a place in the phone book that stripped furniture. (Because he was probably tired of hearing me fret about trying to get the paint off!)  Bare Woods in Cahaba Heights across the street from Miss Myra's Bar-B-Q and Flip Flops and What Nots.  They were SO kind and helpful.  When they called me to let me know it was ready they said they understood why I gave up.  That it gave them a hard time too!  So it made me feel so much better that I didn't spend much more time sanding and stripping.  You see, it would have been pretty dang easy if I could have removed any of the shelves so that I could work on each piece individually.  WELL, every piece is fixed.  It cost only $5 less to have it professionally stripped as the piece of furniture cost... I should have just gone their in the first place.  Glad to know it is there!

After I picked up from Bare Woods:

Good job guys. 98% gone.

I wanted this shelf to match my retro credenza and night stand so I chose an "American Walnut" stain.  It really worked well.  I put 3 coats of stain on and 2 coats of semi-gloss polyurethane. 

End product:

Funny because that is the best picture I have of it finished and it is in the garage and I still have painters tape on the feet.

I'm pretty pleased if I can say so myself.  I didn't think I could get through it a week ago.   Hope you enjoyed the journey, I will just enjoy the outcome!!