Can A Simple Aluminum Foil Hack Make Stripping & Flipping Wood Furniture A Breeze?

If treated right, wood furniture can be semi-immortal. Despite chipping paint, an old stain, or light scratches, quality wood pieces can be stripped, sanded, and sealed to look like new. They have many lives, and a simple aluminum foil hack promises to make refurbishing your wooden furniture easier. DIY content creator Rachel Lorraine (@rachellorrainehome) shared on Instagram that after applying a paint stripper, she uses foil as a scourer to remove the softened paint. The foil is malleable and abrasive, so it can clean between the grooves of sculpted and curved wooden furniture pieces. It seems like an effective hack, but in an exclusive House Digest interview, we spoke to Christophe Pourny, owner of antique restoration studio Christophe Pourny Ltd., and he cautions that this aluminum foil hack isn't worth the risk, as it can damage your furniture.

"No metal tool should be used in contact with wood; especially when fragilized by a wet product, as stripper is," Pourny points out. Although the foil does work to remove the stripped layer, it can mar the wood. That is the exact opposite of what you want when you're refurbishing fine wooden décor or furniture. There are some upcycling projects where this foil hack could come in handy, but restoring delicate wood pieces is not one of them. For that, Pourny shares his tried-and-true method for stripping your wood furniture without causing any damage.

Pourny exclusively told House Digest that using aluminum foil as a scouring tool on furniture legs "can seriously damage the leg, remove some of the curved or sculpted details, and gouge some parts." He warned that you won't have any control over the potential scratching that foil can cause. While there are ways to easily erase stubborn wood furniture scratches, prevention is always better than repair. You wouldn't use a harsh metal scouring pad to clean your wooden countertop or table because it could scratch the surface, and it's the same idea with using foil to strip wood furniture. The paint remover also makes the wood more vulnerable since it wets and softens the surface, increasing the chance for damage. 

"If I had to use aluminum foil, it would be only on rough outdoors furniture," Pourny says, adding that "items less delicate than regular furniture and more forgiving" are best suited for this hack. There'd be less risk of damaging metal or wood furniture made to endure the outdoor elements, and more rustic pieces won't run the risk of being ruined by a few scratches. If you're intentionally looking to rough up a piece and add some overnight character, this foil hack could prove handy, too. But for all your delicate pieces, Pourny has an expert-approved way to remove old paint.

The right way to strip paint from wood is simple. "As a first step to remove stripper, I recommend steel wool," Christophe Pourny exclusively told House Digest. "Although metallic, you can control the grit and catch more grime; it fits better into nooks and details." Steel wool is a flexible, gentle abrasive that can remove the layers of paint without gouging out the wood. Providing you use the right grade (which range from 4 to 0000 in coarseness) you can also use it to clean, polish, buff, and refinish the furniture.

After the first round of stripping the paint, Pourny says, "Discard the piece of soiled steel wool and move to another piece of a finer grit till all paint is removed; then proceed with sanding." You can use a coarse steel pad for the initial strip, like Homax's grade 3 steel wool and a less abrasive one to finish the job, like the Homax grade 0 steel wool. With this method, you're able to remove the old paint from curves and grooves easily without ruining your wood furniture.