ᐅ What is the best method to remove thick paint or varnish from old wooden furniture?

I bought a number of old solid wood furniture pieces from a flea market that I want to restore. My goal is to reveal the natural wood again. The furniture has been painted over several times with thick varnish. Question: What is the fastest way to remove the old layers of varnish? I’ve tried sanding, but it’s very labor-intensive. Does using a paint stripper work better? What do you think about heat guns for this purpose, as they are said to be able to loosen old paint?

It is best to leave valuable pieces to a professional paint stripper. Paints can be toxic, especially nitrocellulose paints, which can release harmful gases when heated (hot air gun). You cannot tell what type of paint was used just by looking.

If you decide to strip the paint yourself, you need to consider how to dispose of the stripper or paint paste. With hobby-level paint stripping, you often won’t remove all paint completely, so additional work with wire brushes and sandpaper is necessary (which is very time-consuming).

If you are experienced and know what you are doing with this type of paint removal, it can be enjoyable and the results are rewarding. However, if you have little experience, this work can be very frustrating.

Ok, I don’t want this to turn into a big project ;-) In this case, it’s probably better to leave the furniture to professional hands. I’ll try working on some unfinished pieces myself.

Yes, a professional is definitely the best solution... I once bought flea market furniture to redesign myself and ended up messing it up quite a bit because I wanted to do everything on my own but didn’t really have the knowledge... the paint stripper was still able to save the furniture, but I could have saved myself a lot of hassle and frustration from the start 😉

I also have some old pieces of furniture. These were also covered with many layers of paint. At first, I tried to remove it myself using paint stripper, sandpaper, and a wire brush. That is a centuries-long task. Now I came across this thread and have hired a company for the job. Yesterday, I picked up the stripped furniture. I have to say, simply amazing.

I have already done that as well. However, I chose not to use a paint stripper since that involves too much chemistry for my taste. I used my sanding machine, and it worked well. For the corners and edges, I simply used sandpaper.

It took some time, but the result is excellent.