To me, the charm is in the shabbiness, I would just clean up the glass!

It's a 1960's ranch and the basement is original wood paneling -- a blue to match the rug would be good. Can I just lightly sand what's there and paint over it? The whole idea of a complete stripping is not too exciting. I cleaned one pane of glass this morning with a razor blade and glass cleaner, used Pledge floor cleaner to clean the wood around it, and it's a marked improvement but even that took about 20 minutes.

Clean it with TSP (tri-sodium phosphate.) Rinse, let dry, lightly sand, tack off sanding dust, prime with KILZ or other primer and use two coats of paint. Don't use any more oil-based stuff on it until you've completed the reno of it. I'd suggest you purchase beadboard panels, cut pieces to fit the backs of your book shelves and paint to match the cabinet. Then restyle the shelves with 1/3 books, 1/3 decor and 1/3 open space. The blue in your rug will work. Look at Sherwin Williams Black Bean for the outside of it and your bookcase.

In future, use the comment box and Attach Images button below it to continue providing info, pix or simply bumping your thread forward. Right now you have two threads going and that leads to confusion and you sometimes miss out on contributions from Houzzers who are put off with the multiple threads for the same dilemma.

Since this is from the 20's and probably has many coats of paint I would sand it lightly and then paint with oil based trim paint.