Revamped Step Stool

After

My Dad is gone now.  He was a sweetheart and 
I've missed him every day for twelve years.  Decades ago 
he built this sweet little step stool for my Mom and recently, 
she gave it to me.
  
I was so excited to have it!

Before

It was never meant to be pretty (just useful) so I wanted to do a little something to it.  

I think it had been stained, painted gold, carpeted (yes, I said carpeted!), un-carpeted (thank goodness), painted green, and finally painted its current shade of cream.  I'm thinking, if it doesn't cave under the weight of all that paint then maybe it won't cave under my weight, but, who am I kidding.

I couldn't bear to put it back down on the floor...

So what did I do with it?  Well, I'm not known for being particularly sentimental (I think I just heard several members of my family along with a few so-called friends say "duh".  HA!) -- I'm more of a no non-sense kind of gal, but, all those layers of paint meant a lot to me. So, I decided to keep them, not to strip it, and to just give the stool a good sanding to reveal ALL the colors from it's past.  

The sanding got me nowhere.  I had to bring out the big guns...

I tried a process I'd used before.  It's one of the iffy things, though,  you just never, ever know what you'll get.  

I painted on the stripper and let it do it's thing.  I didn't do anything (not even touch it) until it was all dry again.  
I just left it sitting out in the sun.

Once it was good and dry, I scraped a little and sanded a lot.

It worked.  I think my Dad must have been watching over me (wanting to know what on earth I was doing to his stool) because it came out just right -- all weather worn.  I called my Mom as soon as I was done and we had a fun talk about all the colors and places
their little stool had been.

A nice clear coat, some really cute handles (he'd roll his eyes on that one) and all that's left is to say, "Thanks, Mom and Dad."

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