Removing Paint in a Mid-Century Home


I took on a small weekend project, getting some paint off of the floor in the hallway. It wasn't a lot of paint, just a few spots here and there. The type of thing a house guest would never notice (we didn't  when we bought the place), but you see it one day and then you can never un-see it. You're always catching it out of the corner of your eye and eventually you break down and have do something about it.

Not knowing exactly what to do, I took to the internet to find out how to safely remove paint from a wood floor. And after spending a day trying all of the non-chemical options, I picked up some Goof Off Professional Strength Remover and decided to give it a try.

I will say a few things:

  1. I used it sparingly, literally using a Q-tip, keeping contact to the wood at an absolute minimum.
  2. I wiped it up immediately after the paint was gone, keeping the time of contact as short as possible.
  3. I had to crack a window even though I was in an already well ventilated area.
  4. I gave the entire area a good clean and polish afterward just to be safe.
All that said, I got almost all of the paint off without a problem and it didn't hurt the wood in the slightest. There are one or two very small dots of paint that if you get down on your hands and knees you can still see, but everything else is gone. 

Which is my final point, if you are using Goof Off to remove paint from your wood floor, don't lose perspective while working. Make sure that last stubborn dot is actually visible from a height higher than six inches before you keep working at it.

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