These chairs are going out to the curb.

I am an idiot.

Case in point:

I've had these chairs for years now; they belonged to our old dining set. I've painted the rest and they live in various places around the house, like our foyer. 

Previously, these chairs looked like this:

then they were pale blue with a greek key fabric, but apparently I didn't take a picture of them.

then I changed the seat cushion to the Robert Allan Kiki Pinata fabric I used in the bookshelves on the other side of the room. 

Unfortunately, the blue wasn't quite the color I wanted.  I really wanted red, but someone was tired of painting, wanted to return the paint sprayer to the store, and sweet-talked me into leaving them the blue color because they looked so lovely.  I grumpily acquiesced. 

They did look lovely.  Just not the lovely that I wanted.

So a few weeks later I grabbed some Killz primer, spraypainted it on, and then started painting them red.  The primer bubbled and was very rough, and even though I sanded it down it could still be seen through the red. 

I came up with the bright idea of stripping all eleventy-billion layers of paint off the chairs.

I will pause, while you all laugh at me. 

I didn't want to use harsh caustic chemicals, so I did some research on the interwebs and found Citrustrip, which is a goopy neon orange paint stripper that doesn't smell.  I will admit that it goes on nice and thick, not runny, and there is very little harsh chemical fumes.  I put some on the chairs and then left it to do its magic.  After about an hour, I came back out and started stripping.

Eh.  It was coming off, but kind of slowly.  I added another layer of Citrustrip, and left it out for a few hours. 

Btw, I did this out on our back patio, which is a fenced in area on top of the garage, which get blazing hot sunlight all day long, with no shade.

That's right, I baked the Citrustrip right onto my chairs.  Completely dried, clumpy, dusty layer of chemical peeler, completely adhered to my chairs. 

See all that orangy crap? That's the dried out citrustrip.

I put them in the garage for a while.  I was sick of working on them. 

I decided last week that since I wasn't going to get my eleventy-billion things on my list done before the babysitter goes back to school, I would make the chairs my one project to complete.  How to fix these things?  I have zero desire to try and strip them again.  I'll try sanding them.

I start sanding the chair.  The baked on Citrustrip sands off into a dusty, flaky chemical mess.  I'm sure this is great for my lungs.  Worse, however, I realize, is that the little tiny edge detailing and the curviness of the chair means that the hand sander is way too large for the job.  I can buy a dremel or a pointy sander or do it by hand.

And so, I am giving up on these chairs. They are going out to the curb. I is done.  I am beyond sick of painting these chairs, since they take for-EVAH to do the shield.  Done! Begone! Out damned spot!

Let the fun shopping of new chairs begin!