Best I can tell the veneer was missing from the lid on both sides. That's probably why they painted it. The wood looked like plywood to me. New veneer wasn't in my budget at this time. So I scrubbed the daylights out of it. First with Citistrip and when that didn't work, someone on the New Home thread told me about ZipStrip. Still took several applications. I used ZipStrip on the rest of the cabinet.