One of my all time favorite kids movies is A Bug's Life. I don't know if it's the silliness of Dennis Leary as a ladybug called Francis that pulled me in or the caterpillar, Heimlich.  He loved to eat, spoke with a German accent and was morbidly obese, yet convinced that someday he would be a beautiful butterfly. No matter which character you like best, at the heart of the movie it was about rooting for the underdog.
A while back, we decided to gut our family room (mostly because it was covered in 70's era paneling) and start fresh. Part of that renovation included selling our bar, which were some old, very heavy, but unique jewelers cases. We decided we'd find some new furniture and re-purpose it into a bar. So, I found us some of the ugliest furniture I could.  Under all that nasty is some WWII era waterfall furniture.  How do I know that?  I stripped it!

Dresser - in all its spray painted glory

More of the beautiful paint job

Grain in the top of the dresser

Sides still needing a bit of work

I used Motsenbocker's Lift Off.  It's green, water based, low-VOC and biodegradable.  You still need to wear gloves (just not latex ones, if you're stripping latex paint, it will eat the latex in the gloves too) because it strips the oils from your skin, kind of like clay does.  You paint the stuff on, wait five to ten minutes and use a stripping pad to start rubbing the paint off.  Take a rag with some warm water over it to wipe off the mess and scrub a bit more.  In no time you're down to the wood.  The dresser took me about three hours to strip, which wasn't too bad, it's a fairly big piece.
While the furniture isn't quite done yet.  It still needs some sanding, priming and white paint.  It is my Heimlich, and my underdog.  Soon it too will be a beautiful butterfly.