At long last- progress
It was a wonderful holiday for us as I hope it was for all of you. I’ve taken quite the hiatus on both the blogging and on the house, but we’re finally getting back into the swing of things. On Monday, after spending the day in our pajamas and alternating between movies and napping, we decided to delve back into the trim. Since we’re both pretty tired of removing the paint and prepping the wood, and because we felt like we weren’t making progress as quickly as we’d like, we did what any true impatient procrastinators would- we decided to start staining what was ready. We picked up a quart of the Walnut Wainscot stain from Sherwin Williams after much thoughtful deliberation (which some might call slightly crazy internal monologues), and tested it out on one of the smaller pieces of trim. We very quickly realized a couple of things: a. we have absolutely no test pieces for trial and error, b. we have no backup plan in case we didn’t like the color, and c. when choosing a color that was tested on pine, we failed to take into account the preexisting color of our wood. See ours is not that light, creamy yellow pine, but rather a burnished orange color, whether left over from the stain or the wood's natural color we have no idea, but the point being that the first coat of stain, rather than come out this rich, warm dark brown, came out orange.
Of course the stain had absolutely no instructions for applying a second coat so we decided to wing it and waited a couple of hours then applied another, but to no avail. That was Monday night and we headed to bed with the all too familiar feelings of disappointment and frustration. What now- should we try to strip that then take it in for color matching? This didn’t sound appealing since it was naturally one of the ornate pieces and I wasn’t too confident we could completely remove all the color. Should we apply one of those stain/polyurethane blends that go on more like paint and hope it covers the color (even though we didn’t want to use polyurethane to finish the wood)? Both of these options are tricky because in order to get all the wood to match it’s generally advisable to follow the same procedure and staining the wood to make it turn orange first felt like a waste of time. This was compounded by the frustration of loving the color on the stirring stick. We thought about taking it to get dip stripped but long story short the piece of trim that we had tested came back is a completely different color- much much lighter, so that means the stain would go on differently and not match the rest of the room.
In my discouragement I recognized that it was a familiar feeling, and then remembered that every major woodworking project I’ve done (mainly furniture) I inevitably become extremely frustrated and discouraged at the stain part. It’s so incredibly unpredictable and the furniture, as with the trim, there truly are no spare pieces that can be sacrificed for testing the color. On one dresser I refinished the mahogany turned out so red/pink I tried to resand the whole thing and ended up going with the poly/stain solution to cover it. On the jewelry box the stain brand failed to mention that to achieve that rich walnut color you may need to apply approximately 8 coats. I can’t tell you how much fun that was on a project that had approximately 800 pieces. But the point is, in the end I loved both of these pieces (although with both there was a point where I gave serious thought to throwing them both away). Remembering the jewelry box process gave me renewed hope that maybe we could get to where we wanted with that stain, if we just kept trying.
So try we did. I buckled down and gave the sample piece a light sanding and applied another coat, and 24 hours later, another. Then I pulled out the sample of the wood blinds we are planning to get for the windows and lo and behold it matches perfectly. It’s not exactly the color we originally wanted, and I have no idea how many coats it will take tto achieve that color around the room, but there are times I look at it and my first thought isn't that its orange and that’s good enough for now. I've even caught myself thinking a time or two that its beautiful so I can only hope that the color will grow on us and that one day soon we wouldn't be able to imagine it any other way. Regardless of the results it will be a huge improvement over its condition before. I suppose the lesson lies in letting it happen, enjoying the process, and not getting too caught up in the results. Funny how often this lesson applies.
Of course the stain had absolutely no instructions for applying a second coat so we decided to wing it and waited a couple of hours then applied another, but to no avail. That was Monday night and we headed to bed with the all too familiar feelings of disappointment and frustration. What now- should we try to strip that then take it in for color matching? This didn’t sound appealing since it was naturally one of the ornate pieces and I wasn’t too confident we could completely remove all the color. Should we apply one of those stain/polyurethane blends that go on more like paint and hope it covers the color (even though we didn’t want to use polyurethane to finish the wood)? Both of these options are tricky because in order to get all the wood to match it’s generally advisable to follow the same procedure and staining the wood to make it turn orange first felt like a waste of time. This was compounded by the frustration of loving the color on the stirring stick. We thought about taking it to get dip stripped but long story short the piece of trim that we had tested came back is a completely different color- much much lighter, so that means the stain would go on differently and not match the rest of the room.
In my discouragement I recognized that it was a familiar feeling, and then remembered that every major woodworking project I’ve done (mainly furniture) I inevitably become extremely frustrated and discouraged at the stain part. It’s so incredibly unpredictable and the furniture, as with the trim, there truly are no spare pieces that can be sacrificed for testing the color. On one dresser I refinished the mahogany turned out so red/pink I tried to resand the whole thing and ended up going with the poly/stain solution to cover it. On the jewelry box the stain brand failed to mention that to achieve that rich walnut color you may need to apply approximately 8 coats. I can’t tell you how much fun that was on a project that had approximately 800 pieces. But the point is, in the end I loved both of these pieces (although with both there was a point where I gave serious thought to throwing them both away). Remembering the jewelry box process gave me renewed hope that maybe we could get to where we wanted with that stain, if we just kept trying.
So try we did. I buckled down and gave the sample piece a light sanding and applied another coat, and 24 hours later, another. Then I pulled out the sample of the wood blinds we are planning to get for the windows and lo and behold it matches perfectly. It’s not exactly the color we originally wanted, and I have no idea how many coats it will take tto achieve that color around the room, but there are times I look at it and my first thought isn't that its orange and that’s good enough for now. I've even caught myself thinking a time or two that its beautiful so I can only hope that the color will grow on us and that one day soon we wouldn't be able to imagine it any other way. Regardless of the results it will be a huge improvement over its condition before. I suppose the lesson lies in letting it happen, enjoying the process, and not getting too caught up in the results. Funny how often this lesson applies.
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