I learned stripping from my mother

Jeff and I love our laundry chute. We don't use it for laundry; we use it for recycling. This summer when the weather warmed up and the humidity rose, the kitchen door swelled shut. After months of not being able to use it, I was able to pry it open. But not knowing when the door was originally painted over, I decided it was not a good idea to take a sander to the door, like we had with the unpainted wooden ones that stuck. The worry with a 93 year old house is that some of the layers of paint could contain lead. The question was how to fix the problem without health risks. Here is the kitchen with the white chute:

Looking a the wooden breakfast nook, the dining room door, and the half bath door in the original wood finish, the idea came to me--strip the laundry chute door down to the wood. Let the stripping begin!

 The chemicals you use for stripping are pretty noxious, so the door came off it's hinges and out to the front porch.

There were several layers of paint: our white, yellow, cream, beige, and white again. The bottom white was not latex paint, so I was glad I decided not to attack it with the sander. It took awhile, but I finally got it down to the wood. Then I was able to sand it down so it would no longer stick.

 I stained it and put on two coats of polyurethane.

Here is the final result with the before shots for comparison:

Here is the full room shot

I think it turned out really well!