Best Heat Gun For All Your DIY Projects

I am excited to share my love for the best heat gun that you need for all your DIY projects. 

Do I have a makeover to share with you today. This little piece was waiting for me to come into the thrift store and rescue it. It was tucked in a corner, looking pretty sad. The size is what caught my eye. It is s small piece. I have a thing for small pieces because the rooms in our home are small. Smaller pieces are harder to find so when I find one, I get extra excited. This piece stole my heart with its size alone.

This makeover would not have been possible without the best heat gun that everyone needs in their tool box. A lot of my furniture makeovers involve paint. I am either painting a piece or rescuing a piece that has already been painted. Most of the time, I will paint over old paint if it doesn’t look good, but there are times I need to strip off old paint to even start a makeover. 

This was one of those times. 

To be honest, I couldn’t grab this piece fast enough at the thrift store. I don’t know about you, but a lot of times, I will not grab a cart in a thrift store. I just make my way around the store without any hopes of finding anything. BUT… there are those times when I find a bigger piece like this and then, my heart rate rises a bit because I can’t carry it around the store, but I don’t want to leave it to go grab a cart because someone else might snatch it up. You will know if I have found something great at a thrift store when I am walking fast (half jogging) to the carts so I can put my good find in it. I need to document these shopping trips more often. 🙂

This little piece had some things not going for it. The blue color on this little piece was not my favorite, the hardware was a mess and the top was peeling pretty bad. The peeling paint is what made me most excited about this piece because it showed me that the paint would probably peel off pretty easily with the best heat gun. 

There were so many great things that this piece has going for it. The size was amazing, the sides had great detail and the key holes were my favorite part. 

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As soon as I got it home, I started working on it right away.  

Supplies Used In This Makeover:

HomeRight Heat Gun

Scraper

Sandpaper

“Drop Cloth” Dixie Belle Paint

Hickory Hardware Pulls

I grabbed my HomeRight Heat Gun to start the transformation. It is so easy to use. Turn it on and wait a few seconds for it to heat up. I put the heat gun over the painted dresser and the paint started bubbling. As soon as it bubbled, it was ready for me to scrape it away. 

Here is a short video showing you how it worked:

If I can avoid using liquid stripper, I do. It is a long process and it doesn’t always work. It is also very cold in Iowa right now and you need a lot of ventilation when you use stripper so I can’t do it inside. The best heat gun makes jobs like this easy to do no matter what the weather is like. To be honest, I get hooked using it when it works well. I can’t stop it! It is like peeling off wallpaper when it comes off in long strips – it is exciting when it comes off easily! 🙂 

The paint came off very easily. Some projects don’t work this well, but the two layers of old paint on this cabinet peeled off after I heated it up. 

Once I got all the paint off that I could, I used my orbital sander to sand the piece smooth.

I loved the color of the wood underneath, but it wasn’t even and I knew I wanted to paint this cabinet when I bought it. I chose the color “Drop Cloth” from Dixie Belle Paint because it is one of my favorite paint colors for furniture. It took two coats of paint to cover it. I used sandpaper around some of the edges to distress it just slightly. Then, I added some new hardware from Hickory Hardware and this piece was done!

I had plans for this piece fitting on the side of our bed when I got it done. 

I put it on the side of our bed, but after having it here for a few days, it isn’t going to work. It is a small piece, but our bedroom is small and it needs to be a little smaller for it to work. I am hoping to find another spot for it in the house. 

What color would you have painted this piece? 

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