The Thrift Diving Podcast

How to Strip Wood Furniture Using Eco-Friendly Products - #22

July 02, 2021 Serena Appiah Season 1 Episode 22
The Thrift Diving Podcast
How to Strip Wood Furniture Using Eco-Friendly Products - #22
The Thrift Diving Podcast
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Show Notes Transcript

It used to be that the only options we had for stripping wood furniture and re-staining it was to use toxic products. But over the past several years, finally some companies have started listening to what we want: safe, eco-friendly products that can be used indoors, clean up easily with soap and water, and won't hurt us. Let's talk about how to strip wood furniture using some of my favorite eco-friendly paint strippers and water-based wood stains!

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Hey, what's up. It's Serena Appiah here from ThriftDiving.com, which is a podcast, a blog and a YouTube channel that helps you decorate, improve, and maintain your home with paint, power tools and thrift stores. And here at Thrift Diving, we don't sacrifice our budget. Or style. Welcome to Episode 22 of the Thrift Diving podcast.

I'm excited about today's episode because we're talking about stripping furniture. This is something that is near and dear to my heart because as time has gone on, I still enjoy painting furniture, but I appreciate the beauty of wood so much more than when I first started doing this back in 2010, when we bought this old house, everything that I found from the thrift store, I wanted to paint.

Everything was in bad condition and I wanted it to look beautiful with pops of color. Now I realize that not every piece of furniture needs to be covered up with paint. Sometimes it just needs a good stripping job. But one thing that I've realized over time is that the products that are available have changed.

Right. So I remember when I would want to strip a piece of furniture and I'll tell you about the very first piece that I stripped. It was a nightmare. It was a $12 table from the thrift store. And I ended up having to do it twice. And it still didn't look that great. I'll tell you about that in a moment.

But when I wanted to strip furniture, and most people probably do this, you go to your local Home Depot or Lowe's you grab whatever's on the shelf. Usually it's like Minwax or Varathane. One of those products that, let's be honest, they're toxic and all the chemicals and all the materials that we're buying, it's not good for the environment. It's not good for our health. And I can still remember years ago when I was stripping. Again, just occasional projects because I didn't strip a lot of things, but I remember like showing off in blog posts the stain all over my hands and it was almost like a badge of honor, like, wow, look what I did.

I stripped furniture, I got it all over me. And now I just hang my head in shame. And I think what in the world were you thinking Serena, like you should have been wearing gloves, a mask, ventilation. I just did it all wrong. And so the reason why I wanted to do this podcast is to highlight that there are better eco-friendly materials that we could be using to do these projects that are not hurting the environment, that are not hurting our health.

And even if you are new, or if you've got experienced, you may be using these products and not realize that there are better healthier alternatives. And I have some experience in using these. And I'll tell you about my experience in this podcast. So let's talk about that first project that I did and what went so horribly wrong?

So it was this, I call it like a blonde wood, but you know, you see some wood from the eighties. It's sort of an outdated color, not that orangy color, but just like a blonde color that doesn't really match anything in your home. Well, this was a $12 table that I got for the dining room. We were upgrading.

I'm giving air quotes here upgrading because when we were in our condo, we only had a little round circular, two-seater with a glass top, but now as a family of four, at that time, we needed something just a little bigger. So $12, wrong color. I decided, hey, I'm going to strip this thing in my garage. And I am going to include pictures down below in the blog post.

And you can see how horrible it was. Well, I don't even remember what kind of stripper that I used. It might even be in the blog post, but I'm sure it wasn't eco-friendly, I'm sure I wasn't following instructions. And I had all of these patches all over the table where some of the previous stain and finished came off and then other parts, it didn't come off very well.

And even though after I had stripped everything off, I sanded it, it still didn't look good. So when you have a poor surface and then you're putting more stain on top of it, well, that new stain is not going to penetrate the areas where you didn't remove all the finish and that's what happened.

So it looked really bad. It looked really spotty. So I ended up redoing it and it still didn't look fantastic. I just passed it off as here's my rustic tape. I made it look like this and it's spotty because that's the look I was going for. It was total inexperience. So let's run through the step-by-step on what you should actually do when you are stripping furniture.

And we're going to talk about some of the products that you'll use to do this project. All right. So let me talk about the table that I just posted on the YouTube channel. It's this $30 vintage drafting table. Amazing how I found this. It was a, just a random day. I was going to the thrift store. This was several years ago.

I want to say 2013, 2014. Myself. My kids went there and they were just making the announcement that everything in the store was 50% off, but it was going to be ending in like 10 minutes. So when I heard the announcement, I thought, oh my gosh, we need to get in there and see what we can find. 

Well, sitting right in the back was this gorgeous. And I say it was gorgeous, but it was, it still needed some refinishing, but it was this gorgeous vintage Anco Bilt drafting table. And when I saw it, I was like, oh my gosh, it's $60. Oh, I can get it for 30. So I lugged it up to the front. Thankfully they extended it for a few minutes, so I could get that 50% off deal.

But I remember my first thought is I'm going to paint this drafting table. Just think about it. We've got this beautiful drafting table that's vintage. No paint should have ever touched it. Thank goodness, I actually went on to eBay and saw that people were selling these for about three, $400 somewhere in that range.

And just recently I looked and I saw one that was very similar for about $700. So I'm so thankful that I didn't touch it. I just left it, put it in my basement office and that's where the kids and I would use it to do like crafting projects. Well, over the years, the kids have destroyed this table. The top was in such bad condition.

And you know how, when something in your house looks real raggedy, but you don't notice it because you're so used to seeing it. Like you just don't even notice the raggedness. Come on. I know you understand what that means. Like, for example, when you have people over to your house or you know people are coming suddenly, it's like you've taken off the rose-colored glasses and you're looking around your house and you've got kids' fingerprints all over the walls and you're seeing all the stuck food on the counter. 

Like you're seeing everything, you're seeing everything well, that's how it was with his table. I just sort of didn't pay attention to it. It's where me and the kids did crafts. But when a company reached out to me called Franmar they make this product called well, they make a lot of products, but one of the products that I've actually been using for a long, long period of time is called soy gel paint paint and urethane stripper.

And I found it years ago because it was eco-friendly. It didn't have that strong odor that some of the stripping gels have, and I just started using it and I liked it. So when they reached out to me recently and said, hey, we'd love to work with you. We'll send you our product. We'll pay you. Remember, this is how bloggers make money.

We get to use products and brands will pay us to promote those products. But the beautiful part is when you already use that product anyway. So for them to ask you to do something that you already do and use, it's like, oh my gosh, there's nothing better than that. So anyway, they sent me the product and I got started on stripping this table.

So we're going to talk about the step-by-steps that I went through to get to this point. But if some of you have stripped furniture before, you know if you go to your local Home Depot or Lowe's, there's a brand that a lot of people have used and it's called citrus strip, right? It's that pinky orangy color.

And while I don't think it's, well, I know, I know for a fact that it's not toxic, the smell, which  they try to promote it as if, oh my gosh, it's got this citrus smell. I find it sickening. It's sickening. I've used that stripper and it just smells.

It's just overwhelming. I don't like it. Home Depot and Lowe's may have pulled the other ones that have something called methylene chloride. That's the stuff that can kill you, that if you are stripping indoors in an unventilated area, it can kill you. And in fact, a couple of years ago, there was a story that had come out.

I'll see if I can find that story, but there was two people who were stripping inside and the fumes killed them. So I don't understand the mechanism behind it, but it's toxic. So a lot of times when we're stripping furniture, we've got to be outdoors. We've got to be gloved up. Eye wear, I mean, everything's got to be covered because it can hurt you.

Right. And this is traditionally what it's always been. So when Fran Mar had reached out and said, hey, we want you to use this soy gel. I said to them, I've already been using this for years. I love it because it's natural. It doesn't really have, it has a little bit of an odor, but it's not the same sort of sickening odor that I had with, you know, previous refinishing products that have used. 

When they sent this to me, I thought, okay, well, if I'm using a soy gel to strip this drafting table, I want to use some eco-friendly stains as well. So there's a company that I had found, I want to say, maybe about six months within the last year and it's called ECOS Paints. I will leave a link down below and I ordered them because, well, actually I ordered samples.

They have probably about 10 or 12 different wood stains, but they're all water based. They have no odor, no VOCs. If you bring the piece of refinished stain piece into your bedroom, you're not going to have fumes and odors for days, which can typically happen with traditional,  Varathane or Minwax stains.

Those things hold a lot of smells. And the off gassing of the VOC is sometimes it can take a long time for that smell to go away. And even when the smell goes away, you're still inhaling those toxins. Right. Let's just be real. That's what happens when you're using non- environmentally friendly products.

So for this drafting table, I really wanted it to be a project where from all fronts, it could be something that could easily be done indoors. And when you bring it in, even if you do it outdoors, just because stripping is messy, let's be honest. Stripping is very messy. 

All right. So that's why I'm doing this. And these are the products that we're going to talk about, and I'll tell you what my thoughts are on these products as we go. But let's talk about the rest of the materials that you need. 

So, as I mentioned, stripping furniture, it is so messy, but if you've ever done it before, or you've ever watched it on a YouTube video, it's very satisfying.

There is nothing like putting stripping gel on a thick layer of paint and just watching it bubble up. I mean, once you leave that on there for, I generally leave it for about 15, 15 minutes and it's just so fun to watch. Now I'm using for the most part, a putty knife that's metal, but you got to be careful because if you're using one that's metal, it can actually gouge your wood.

Plastic ones can be used too, I tend to like the sharpness of putty knives, knives. Did I just say knives? Knives is not a word, but I actually like the sharpness of the putty knives because you can scrape more off and you just feel like you're getting a better strip. All right. So you definitely need a putty knife, metal, or plastic.

You want to use a paintbrush or a foam roller to apply it and just put it in an old bowl or a mixing container and make sure that you've got a cardboard box. You need something that once you scrape off the existing paint or the existing topcoats and old stain, you need somewhere to discard this stuff.

And it is nasty. It is thick. it gets all over your gloves. So you definitely want to wear gloves. And if you could have multiple boxes, do that because over time it starts to get really icky right around the perimeter, the top part of the box.  Safety glasses, definitely. You need a dust mask. You're going to need lots of lint-free cloths and also sandpaper and an orbital sander.

Now you can sand by hand. If you're doing a small project, you can stand by hand. However, I always tell people, get an orbital sander. I personally have used the RYOBI sander, which is very affordable. I think you can get one for about $50. That's without the battery, but if you have the RYOBI line of tools, you can use the battery in pretty much all of their 18 volt one plus family of tools. $50. Get an orbital sander. It is going to help you and then get a variety of grits. So get a 40-grit sandpaper, 80 grit, 120 150 and220. You can find the link to all these materials in the blog post. I will leave this down below. So don't feel like you've got to take notes.

Now that you've got all your materials, oh, you also want some plastic sheeting, because remember with we're using environmentally friendly products, we can do part of this project indoors. Go to Home Depot or Lowe's and get some of those,  inexpensive plastic sheets and you'll want it for the floor, but you can also get it for the ceilings. And if you take some painter's tape and attach it to the ceiling, then you can create curtains sort of for yourself. So that when you're sanding, if you don't have an outdoor area, you could keep all of that dust inside, if that makes sense. Okay. 

So now that we've got all the tools and materials, let's talk about what we do first, second and third. So what I'd like to do is to protect the floors. When I first started stripping furniture, I didn't necessarily do it in the garage because I didn't have any space. I used to bring in tons and tons of furniture so that there was no space to work out there. And it may have been cold.

I couldn't work in the driveway. So there have been times when I would work and strip down here in the basement, like where my office is. And I remember one time, not even putting anything on the floor. And I think I was using Citristrip and I just said, well, you know, eventually one day I'll make these floors over.

So I'm not even, I'm not even caring about these linoleum tiles. Well, let me tell you that stuff ate through the tiles. Yes. They ate through the tiles and destroyed the floor and it was at least two or three years before I did the floors. So every time I would look at those spots and I'm like doggonit on it, why didn't I get plastic?

So protect your floors. Put down the sheets, but also make sure that you've got some shoes on too. A lot of times, if you're indoors working, you're going to be in socks, flip flops slippers. That's not what you want to be stripping in to make sure that you've got a close toed pair of shoes and you're not stepping in the mess and then transferring it throughout your house.

Again, stripping is very messy. 

All right. So once you've protect your floors, the next thing you have to do is clean the wood with cleaner and degreaser. Now, this is another product that, Fran Mar had sent to me. It's called Blue Bear Emerge Cleaner and Degreaser this actually replaces the traditional TSP.

So TSP is trisodium phosphate. I'm not a chemist. I don't know exactly what it does other than people have traditionally used it for cleaning and decreasing, toxic. I mean, I don't know how toxic, but it's toxic in that you don't want it around your kids and your pets. You don't want it in your eyes.

That's not a product we want to use. So this Emerge Cleaner and Degreaser actually replaces that. So what I'll do is clean the wood with this cleaner and degreaser first. You can also use vinegar and water. A lot of times people will use that and it works just as well, but they sent me the Emerge Cleaner and Degreaser, so I'm going to use it.

And actually I liked it because I started using it outdoors for other things. So you can use it all around the house, not just for stripping. So even though you're going to be sanding things down, I still like to just as a good rule of thumb is to always clean anything that you're going to be painting or refinishing.

So once everything is clean, the next step is to apply a thick coat of the soy gel and let it do its job. Now, you don't want to completely coat it with like multiple layers. Just put on a thick enough layer that it stays wet. You see it within, gosh, probably the first couple of minutes. You'll see that previous coat underneath start to bubble.

 Also when you put a little bit of a thicker layer, it will allow it to not dry out because if it dries out now you've got a scrape dried stripper off of your project. It's just going to be a bigger mess. So make sure that it's thick, but don't totally overcoat it because then you're just wasting product. 

This is where you're definitely going to need that box and you're going to need a good scraper. And this part is very satisfying, but it's very messy too. So just scrape as much as you can off. And what I tell people is to work in sections. Don't feel like you've got to do the entire thing in one application. So for example, if you're doing like a dining room table, don't put a coat of stripper on the entire table, you know, not even the entire top, just maybe do half or a quarter, depending on how big it is. And even though it'll take a little longer, that way it's better because then that way it's not drying on you and you can work in small sections.

All right. So then once you start scraping this off and you're working in small sections, make sure again, you're wearing gloves, even though it's, non-toxic what you're removing, could be toxic. Right. So I'm sure if you're removing old stain and that is toxic stain. So you want to remove that and still have your gloves on, but again, you're using the soil gel and once you put some new stain, like water-based stain, then it's not going to be as bad, but definitely always wear gloves. Just get into the habit of wearing gloves. 

So as you're scraping this stuff off, scrape it into your container and you'll start seeing that. What used to be clear soy gel is now like an amber color or whatever, the color of the old stain and finishes.

It'll just start coming off and it's pretty disgusting, but it's a lot of fun too. So once you've done that section, for example, you've gotten the top done. Now you can move on to the legs or the left side or the right side, whatever. Work in stages. And when everything is clean, then you're going to clean it with the cleaner and degreaser.

But before you clean it, let me say something about nooks and crannies. Ah, this is the part that really gets me about stripping furniture, because if you're doing a piece that has curvy legs or it's decorative, you're going to need some bristle brushes, right? If you go to Home Depot or Lowe's, you can get a pack of steel brushes.

You're going to want those because you're going to have to put that soy gel into those grooves and you're going to have to scrape it out and it can be very tedious. In fact, if you remember the vanity that I built in my master bathroom, the legs that I used had paint on them. I found them at an old salvage shop.

They had paint, it took me a long time to strip them down and then sand them down. So if you're dealing with curvy parts, it's going to be a little bit more difficult to get that old stain. So take your time on those areas. Use those bristle brushes.

Even an old toothbrush will work, but I'll be honest with you. The steel bristle brushes, those work much better. Have those on hand.  Once you've gotten everything clean now is the time to reclean it with the cleaner and degreaser now, if you go to Home Depot and Lowe's, they actually do make, I think it's called After Wash.

 It's one of those products where I would put it in that category, okay, this is toxic. What's a good alternative. And that would be the cleaner and degreaser. So you don't want to leave any of this soy gel on your wood, even though you're going to be sanding this down, what'll happen is if you leave some of that soy gel on your wood, as you're sanding, it's just going to gum up and cake up on the sandpaper. And if you know the cost of those little sanding discs, those things can be very expensive. You don't want to waste your sanding disc because you didn't properly clean it. So get a clean towel, use the cleaner, and degreaser clean everything off.

Make sure that it's dry. And at this point I would let it sit for maybe 24 hours before you start sanding it down. You want that wood to be completely dry before you start sanding. 

All right. So the next step would be to sand it down with the orbital sander. If you're using a flat surface, the orbital sander is great.

It doesn't take a lot of time, depending on your surface. This drafting table took a long time because there were so many deep cuts and scratches that even my 40-grit sandpaper wasn't removing everything. So it took some time. But I worked from the 40 grit, which is a little bit more heavy duty in removing the top.

And then I went from the 60 to 80 to the 80 to the one 20 from the one 20 to the one 50 and one 50 to two 20. When you're stripping and then sanding, and you definitely want to make sure that you're working your way up gently to those various grits of sandpaper.

That's how you get that smooth surface for  the stain that you're going to use. Now, here's the thing, when you're using an orbital sander, what happens is it's sort of rotating and vibrating, right? And if you take the sander and you just run it over the wood, as fast as you can, guess what's going to happen, you're going to get these little things called pigtails.

They're these little curly cues. You may not even notice them until you go to put the stain on. And then you see all these marks on your wood and you're like, what in the world? Why does it look like? Well, the reason why is twofold. Number one, you didn't properly go from, 60 to 80 to one, 20 to one 50.

So you have to work your way up. Every time you get to a smoother sandpaper, the higher, the number, the smoother it is, as you work your way up, that orbital sander is smoothing out all of those pigtails. Right? The second thing is, if you're moving your sander too quickly, it's just wreaking havoc when your wood.

So generally as a rule of thumb, I learned this years ago, you want to move that sander about one inch per second. So it'll feel kind of slow. You don't want to push down on it because I know sometimes when we're sanding, we want to push down on it to really get into that wood. And that also creates a lot of those pigtails, which again, you don't see until you put the stain on.

So just a few tips about sanding the wood. If you have a lot of nooks and crannies, you might have to do that by hand, or you can get one of these small little, I can't remember the name of it, but there's these little multi tools that have a little triangular  sander head. And it's literally, probably about two and a half, two and a half inches wide, like a little triangle.

And those are perfect for small spaces. So invest in one of those, I will leave a link down below so that you know exactly what I'm talking about, but that's a sander you want to have in your toolbox because most times when you refinished furniture, you will have some little area you can't get to with an orbital sander.

You need that little triangular sander to get into those cracks and corners. Also make sure you are please wearing a dust mask. There was a furniture painting course that I saw online. There's this site called Creative Bug. I don't know if you've heard of it, but my local library --oh, this is amazing-- my local library actually gives you free access to all of these Creative Bug classes. I just found this out like last week. So I went in there the other day and I thought, let me just go ahead and see what they got in there. So they had a furniture painting course, and the woman was using an orbital sander and she was going so fast, back, and forth. Now she's painting. So that's a completely, almost a completely different thing. However, you are still getting the scratches and the wood, and it's just never good idea to move that quickly.

I used to move that quickly, but I don't anymore. She was going back and forth and she wasn't even wearing a mask. And I couldn't, I had to say something, but I couldn't, you know, completely like admonish her because this is what I would do. Like there have been many, a times I would stain or strip and sand furniture and I wouldn't even wear a mask.

So I'm telling you, you know, listener, please, whatever you are doing when you're standing, you could even just be putting a little bit of wood filler in a little gouge and you're sanding it, put a mask. I know sometimes even right now, there'll be times where I say, oh, I'm just going to sand a little bit.

Well, over a lifetime, that little bit can become a lot. And you do not want to breathe that stuff into your lungs. You just do not. And that's why we're trying to use eco-friendly things so that when we're breathing things in, it's not causing problems, five, 10 years down the road. 

So once everything is sanded, we're going to wipe away all of that dust that was created.

And we're going to apply a coat of wood conditioner for step six. Now, wood conditioner, this is something that I've come to love to use. I remember when I thought it was just sort of a frivolous step.. Right when you're refinishing wood furniture, uh, or maybe you're building something with raw wood that's never been refinished.

But wood conditioner is sort of like when a person wears makeup and they're putting foundation on their face, so what's that foundation doing right?  It's filling in the pores. It's creating this nice smooth foundation for everything else to stick to the blush, the bronzer, everything. And that's what wood conditioners like. You're using wood conditioner so that when you apply that stain , especially into porous wood, like pine, I believe, maybe Douglas fir I think, but definitely, definitely pine and maple. Those are two woods they usually stain kind of unevenly, especially pine, because some parts will be more porous than other parts and your stain ends up looking blotchy. So if you've ever refinished something with pine and you wondered why some parts just look really dark, it's because you didn't use a wood. So that wood conditioner creates that nice level, even surface upon which your stain will adhere, the pigment in the stain will adhere to that wood conditioner.

And the one that I like to use is the same one that I've been telling you about the stains it's from ECOS paints. It's very eco-friendly. Now you can buy a wood conditioner from Home Depot or Lowe's, but again, those ones, I don't think I would be buying those. I really do like the ECOS one. When I built my closet, all of the pieces had wood conditioner and it took a little bit of extra time because it was an extra step, but here's what I do.

So when I do wood conditioner, I am starting with a clean surface.  You can use a paintbrush or you can use one of those foam brushes, but you want to apply a nice liberal coat to the surface. And even as you're applying it, you'll start to see it sort of soak in and kind of dry up.

You don't want it to dry. We're going to let it sit on there for about just maybe about a minute. And then we're going to take a clean cloth. We're going to wipe it off. And then in 30 minutes, the surface should be dry.

Now, when you first put that wood conditioner on, it's going to change the color of wood. But once it dries, the color of the wood, from what I've noticed, goes back to its original color. 

I will find an article. I will link that down below on the importance of wood conditioner. 

So once that has dried, then it's time to apply two to three coats of wood stain. Again, we're going to be using eco-friendly wood stain from now on because the Minwax, the Varathane, all of these are toxic. Not only is it just that initial smell, that initial odor, but when you bring those projects back into your house, it takes a lot of time to get rid of that smell. And even then it's still off gassing VOCs: volatile, organic compounds. Probably about six months ago, I discovered this brand of paints, the ECOS paints. And I didn't know whether to trust their stains or not.

So I ordered little sample pots. I got maybe 10 or 12 of them and they came and just a small little pot so I could sample them. And then the two favorite colors that I loved, was this spice pecan and the British Chestnut. Those colors were rich. They were deep. A couple of the other colors that they offered, I felt looked a little blotchy. I mean, even with wood conditioner, I didn't really like how it looked. I kind of stick with those two, but here's what I would recommend.

What I would recommend for you to do is order a sample pot, just a small little one. I think it might be two or $3. And that way what you can do is create a sample board. So take a little bit of color from each of the pots and have a sample board. So that way, the next time you have a project that you want to strip  and

stain, you can look at your sample board and say, oh, that's the color I'm going for. So I would highly, highly recommend you-- that's what I did. I created a sample board and that's how I knew. Okay. I love the British Chestnut. I love the Spice Pecan. Not so much on this other color. And also too, they're water-based and there's zero VOC.

So there's no smell to them at all. When you bring your project into your house, into your bedroom, you're not going to smell any off gassing and it cleans up well. I can't tell you how many times I've used oil-based stains and it's just been a nightmare trying to clean that stuff up, even just to get it off of your hands,

if it gets on your hands by accident, if you weren't an idiot like me and was staining furniture with it. You know, with no gloves, but I just love the water-based cleanup. It's just better for the environment. And I think the older I get and the more mature I get with my DIY, the more I'm looking for products that are not going to make me wish that I'd never used them.

You know what I mean, 10 years, 15 years down the road. I don't want to have to face up to the fact that I was using things that I shouldn't have been using. 

All right. You want to do two coats, definitely. And the more coats you add, the more color, the deeper the color you're going to get, but don't forget that you can actually blend colors together too.

And that's what I did with his drafting table. I did two coats of the Spice Pecan, but it was a little bit more orangy than I wanted it to be. So I brought in more of the brown of the British Chestnut and it was perfect. It looked exactly how I wanted it to be, and it was a nice deep color and it was even, it wasn't spotty or anything because of the wood conditioner.

So for the last step is to apply the wax. Now I will tell you that the wax that I used for the drafting table. Doesn't necessarily fall into the category of eco-friendly. It does have a little bit of an odor to it. I personally don't mind the odor. It doesn't give me a headache or anything, but I'm telling you that there are waxes out there that are more environmentally friendly.

One that comes to mind is Miss Mustard Seed. And I have used her wax. I have loved using her wax because it doesn't have an odor, doesn't smell. I will find a link down below. The only reason that I'm using the, I think it's called. Fiddes and Sons, Fiddes and Sons, I mispronounce it all the time. I'll leave a link down below is because I'd used it on some projects and it looked really good.

A friend of mine had recommended it to me. So that's the wax I'll typically use. I feel okay using that wax, I feel like it's not as toxic as using some other things. You can find some topcoats too. The company I mentioned ECOS paints, they also make a non-toxic zero VOC topcoat. I have used it. I've tried it on some samples.

I don't particularly like it. I will admit that I don't like it. I can see the brush strokes. Now, if I were using it in a paint sprayer, I think it would be a little different because I would not see the brush strokes in the topcoat. But maybe it was just me. Maybe I was applying it wrong. I would be willing to try it again, but yes, ECOS paints, great company, Fran Mar Blue Bear products, great products to use.

And if you're waxing, I would definitely recommend you use two coats of wax. If you want it to shine, you can do more coats. And if your piece of furniture is getting a lot of traffic, let's say you're doing a coffee table and you want that thing to have a lot of protection, I would consider doing even additional layers of wax and letting them dry in between.

And also just be careful because if you're putting heat or moisture on wax, it can actually ruin the wax and the wood. If a piece is getting a lot of traffic, then I would consider using a topcoat. Now I will tell you that I like to use General Finishes, High Performance Topcoat. Is it eco-friendly? Not particularly, but I think it's low VOC.

I'll actually have to look on that, but it's not zero VOC. So if I'm going to be using products that have VOCs, I like to go for low VOC if I can't do zero. But just keep that in mind. All of that information is generally on the back of the can. It'll tell you, and if not, you could probably find it on their website.

 And also with wax, you do want to re-wax it every six months to make sure  it's beautiful.

So that's my process when I am refinishing furniture now, like I said, it's completely changed from years ago when I was not even wearing gloves and just buying Minwax and just so proud to show off how dirty I got. That was stupid. That was really stupid. I would never do that again. And now it's all about being as safe as possible while being able to make my home look good and enjoy what I'm doing and not feel like, okay, I'm going to pay for this in 10 years because I'm altering, you know, the, the chemistry of my body because of what I'm breathing in and letting soak through my skin.

So, what I want to know from you is, are there products that you're using in your DIY projects that you feel are eco-friendly that you want me to know about? Please do let me know, send me an email. You can send it in Instagram. You can DM me @thriftdiving, or you can go on Facebook. Email is usually the best.

I check it multiple times a day and I think I'm pretty good with getting back in touch with people. It used to be so bad. Oh my gosh. It would be two months, sometimes three months before we get back to people. But remember now that I've got my schedule intact and every day I know what I'm doing, I check my email multiple times a day.

So you will hear back from me, but I want to know from you, what are the things that you're using that are eco-friendly or are you using things that you didn't realize were as toxic. Have you ever thought about the toxicity of the things that you're using to paint and strip? Let's talk about paint. Oh, I will tell you.

I was looking on ECOS Paints website. Okay. All their paints are zero VOC. I didn't know that they actually do custom matches. So let's say for example, there's a Behr color or a Sherwin-Williams color that you like, and you want to use ECOS paint brand of paint, zero VOC.

You can tell them, hey, I want you to match Sherwin Williams, Rain Washed. Can you match that for me? They will match it for you and ship it to you. So for my kid's bedroom makeover, we're going to be doing this, probably, I'm going to say August, we're going to be doing this in August. I'm going to find a color of pink that I like, and I'm going to order it from ECOS paints.

No, they are not a sponsor. I would love to work with them. Maybe one day, but I just believe in their vision, I believe in using safe products. So if there's companies out there who are providing safe products, I'm going to promote them as much as I can. I love it. I love it. All right. 

So for next week, episode 23, I have no idea what we're talking about. I was thinking about it today. Like, what is it I want to talk about? So I was actually thinking that maybe we might talk about battery versus gas and battery corded.. Right. Like, what do you prefer? Do you prefer battery operated tools or do you prefer to plug it in or to add gas? We're going to talk about, I think we're going to talk about that next week.

I don't know about you, but this is the time of the year where there's, there's a ton of outdoor projects to do, lots of yard cleanup. And even with buying tools, what are you gravitating towards? What are you buying? And I want to know we're going to talk about it next week. That that's what we're going to talk about.

We're going to talk about battery versus gas and corded. So be sure to come back for that, it's going to be a lot of fun. I love talking about these topics because I don't ever get to talk about them to anybody else, but you and I don't get to hear back from you. Except I will call out Laura.

Thank you, Laura. Last week I talked about Laura, she'd said, hey, you need to embrace your unique voice. And I couldn't remember that. She was the one that had mentioned, like, you know, I couldn't remember her name as the one who had told me that great advice. She will email me and tell me she likes the podcast.

So thank you, Laura. Big shout out to her. Thank you for listening. Thank you to everybody who listens every week and tunes in. And I want to hear back from you to send me an email Serena@thriftdiving.com. If you're enjoying this podcast, you can also leave a comment in Apple Podcasts, Google podcasts, wherever it is that you listen, you can leave a comment there.

And I will make sure that I see that. Okay. I will see you next episode. Have a wonderful 4th of July weekend. Be safe. Party. Don't drink and drive, and I will see you next episode.