Prior to putting our home up for sale, the previous owners painted everything white in an attempt to make things look bigger. Which, frankly, was a bit silly. Our house isn’t a mansion, but it’s not tiny either. 

Anywho, when I say they painted everything white, I mean everything. Command strips. Shelves. Cabinet hardware. Door hinges. The only thing they left alone was one wall in the second bedroom, and half the ceiling in the living room – which I suspect was because they ran out of paint. 

Heck they even tried to cover up chips in the sink and tub with white paint. The ‘fixes’ in the tub where especially hilarious because the tub is that lovely 60’s Harvest Gold and they used bright white paint to fix this huge chip. I guess they thought we wouldn’t notice, even though it stuck out like a sore thumb. Considering how little we paid for this place, we really can’t complain though. 

We also assume they rinsed out their brushes in the sink at some point, because there were splotches of white paint in the bottom. It was all over the drain too, and we even had to poke holes in it and peel it back so it water could actually drain properly.

The sink was also pretty badly stained with what I assume was rust. Neither Comet nor CLR could get it out. It looked horrible.

After a year and a half of trying to rescue it, we gave up and decided we would just replace the the sink instead. 

And then I heard about Bar Keepers Friend. It’s a powdered cleanser like Comet but you can also get it as a soft scrub or a spray. It can be used on porcelain, stainless steel, and wood. Heck, my dad even uses it on car paint to take out minor scratches. 

I figured it was worth a shot.

The instructions say to only leave it on for a few minutes before scrubbing everything down and rinsing it off. Our stains were so bad that I had to let it sit for half an hour. I held my breath as I did a little scrubbing and rinsed everything off. I had a glowing white sink! No more nasty brown stains! 

Sadly, the paint refused to budge though. It didn’t matter if we attacked it with steel wool or a putty knife. It just wouldn’t give up the ghost. I turned to the internet and found out about Goof Off (not to be confused with Goop Off) which is a latex based paint remover used to clean up graffiti and other oopsies. 

We tracked it down at our local Lowe’s and bought a small little tin jar of the professional version. As soon as we got home I went to town soaking the paint splotches down with it. I let it sit for five minutes and started scrubbing it with a scouring pad. Some of the paint came up, but not all. I doused the sink again and waited a little longer. More paint came up this time. 

It took four rounds of soaking, waiting, and then scrubbing some more, but finally, FINALLY, all the paint was gone and the sink was clean!

Next up we plan on pulling off all the old caulking (it doesn’t look like it’s been replaced in awhile) and redoing it. We also plan on replacing the faucet with something that’s not as awkward and filling in all the chips with a proper porcelain repair kit.

We’ll let you know how it goes!