I finally found a use for my high school senior t-shirt

This is me working on my 1890s mantel that I picked up for free from one of our renovation projects at work. I decided to try and strip the 10+ coats of lead paint off of it and refinish it. It didn't go so well. I think there were many, many more coats of paint than I even realize and some parts are on there for life. I spent Saturday putting on this super duper paint removal paste and three straight hours on Sunday stripping it off. This is the second weekend I've been doing this. And I'm done. All of the paint isn't off, in fact, the mantel looks more like a topographic map, but I can't do any more.

So, I sanded what was left and am in the process of slapping some white paint on it. The funny thing is that I stripped off some layers of paint, to put more on. Ridiculous. Although, it was lead paint. Anyway, I have one more layer of paint to put on and it actually looks older than it did before I started this process. I don't mind it though, because you can see the old layers of paint through the new, and I like that. It tells a story of it's life...or that's what I'm going with.

Once I cut part of the bottom out to fit around our baseboard, I'll attach it to the living room wall and I'll make sure to take a picture of the finished product. For as jacked up as it looks I think I'll actually really like it.

Morgan on the other hand is convinced that I'm crazy and has no idea why I brought home two mantels when we don't even have one fireplace. But, at least I know when and when not to flush the toilet!