Adventures in Contact Paper!

So last week we got a little table from a friend's garage sale. It had potential, but someone had covered the top of this little guy with contact paper, it did have a wood grain-like design, but WHY? No idea why it had been done. So it was my task to remove this sticky mess...and I didn't feel an urgency to apply all that elbow grease. But then yesterday a nice UIC student came in to purchase the table for an art installation and the table got moved to the top of my to-do list.

Here's my process and all the helpful things I learned.

So as you can see- this one's a fixer-upper. 

I went to the hardware store and asked their advice. The helpful employee recommended a rounded scraper and goo gone. So here's my first attempt. Very slow work. 

Then I had a light bulb moment- heat! That definitely sped up the process. 

Just a few seconds with my handy hair dryer set to high and the sheets came right off.

After removing all the contact paper the sticky residue was still there. 

I saturated the table with goo gone and let it sit 10 minutes. Then I scraped the majority off and used a cloth to rub away the rest. 

And here's the top contact paper-free! 

Now I just need to fix the missing wood trim. More photos to come of the finished product.