How to Update a Peeling Plant Shelf

Look at that horrible mess! There's no way I'd want that to display pretty planters and flowers. And I'll admit - this fix was a ton of work with a lot of elbow grease, but there's not much skill involved. Just hard work!

Here's what you need:

• paint stripper
• plastic scrapers
• rags
• plastic sheeting
• exterior paint
• electric sander/sandpaper sheets
• paint brushes (preferably disposable)
• disposable gloves

Steps:

• Move your piece onto a plastic sheet - it gets super messy and you don't want that all over your patio or yard
• Apply stripper generously with a paint brush. Wear gloves during this part
• Let it sit for several hours or even longer depending on how quickly you are able to scrape it
• You may need to apply more in some areas if you're paint is adhered good
• You'll see it bubbling pretty quick, but resist the urge to start scraping until it's ready - you can see in the pic below how it's peeling up the paint in spots

• Once you get good and bubbly paint, you can start scraping. Use a plastic scraper so you don't gouge the wood.

This is what it looks like after letting the stripper sit for a while and do it's job. Those bubbly pieces are good signs!

You can see the electric sander and the stripper still left a little paint behind, but as long as it's smooth, it was easily painted over. And so far, it's been fine - no issues with peeling.

And here's the finished shelf - perfect and ready for spring and summer! Be sure to check out the blog post for more details on how this shelf turned out!

You can see I had some paint left on the middle boards (the outers were already being painted in this pic). A little paint leftover is fine as long as it's smooth and can be painted over.

• Scrape as much as you can and then use a sander for the rest
• Clean off all debris and dust
• Paint a new fun color using exterior paint (very important not to use paint for interior if you're leaving this in the elements)