Unpainting

This is a nice little bookshelf I picked up at a yard sale for $5. They painted this fake wood shelf that they probably got from Wal Mart or Target with Latex paint. And it was scratched. Bad. So, I decided to unpaint it. (I have decided that this s the best way to describe it... despite my husbands literal translation. :D) It took me a lot longer than it should have, because I kept pushing the little voice out of my had that was telling me to try getting it wet. Turns out the 8+ hours I spent peeling the paint and making a HUGE mess could have been closer to 2 hours if I had just rubbed a wet wash cloth over the paint and watched it come off in huge pieces. Oh well, you live and you learn. :) Also, I left the back brown because it is on a different material so it didn't come off... and they primed that part first too. But it's okay because brown works in my front room. :)

Here are my before pictures:

During:

After: