Staining Doors: The Plan

So to summarize my last post, the big challenge with my doors is blending together old doors with varnish residue on them, new cuts into the old wood, gouges, variations in color, and one of them with poplar doweled onto the bottom. To accomplish this, I want a stain that mostly stays on top of the wood. A penetrating stain might leave light blotches in spots where the old varnish prevented it from taking. And plus, this way I can build it up if I don’t like it. Woodworkers would call this type of stain a toner.

To do it, I went to the Woodcraft store all the way out in Downingtown. Yes it’s far, but I work out that way so it wasn’t too bad. And I bought TransTint brown mahogany dye to mix into General Finishes high performance water based top coat. I used the off cut from one of my doors, an extra piece of poplar molding, and another strip of pine. And I set out to measure out the dye and realized I didn’t have anything that would do small volumes like that. So I went into the kitchen to swipe my mom’s mini measure. (I would have replaced it quickly). And to my horror, the lettering had worn off!

At this point, I imagined that the test/planning work for this project would last a month instead of a day and I got mad. I was mad at my mom for putting it in the dishwasher. But I knew this wasn’t fair, so I refocused on being mad at the manufacturer for not making it dishwasher safe. I was on the internet looking up unit conversions and got mad at congress for voting down Thomas Jefferson’s bill to put us on the metric system. And then I found them at Bed Bath and Beyond for $3.50 and was mad to pay 2 dollars more than I thought they’d cost. But I was back in business. Here are the tools of the trade.

So in the back we have random bits of wood. In front of that we have the top coat product, a plastic can for measuring out the finish, the dye stain, a mini measure for measuring the dye. And because I plan on wiping this on, I have a gross old stretched out pair of my dad’s underpants and a piece of foam padding.

And the result?

That’s the old finish of my door on front and a new cut on top. I put the dyed varnish onto both. There’s almost no discernable difference. Then I have more pine and the poplar. (I’m painting my trim, but one door has poplar from the same lumber yard fused onto it.)

HOW IS THIS REAL LIFE? This is staining and finishing in one step. And it looks good!

So the plan is I’ll do a little sanding to round off the edges of the doors that were cut and smooth out any rough spots where the doors are gouged. I won’t try to make anything look new. Then I’ll wipe on one thin coat of this dyed poly. Then I’ll wipe on additional coats to any areas that I don’t like. And then I’ll use poly that’s not dyed to make sure everything has at least 3 coats on it.

Three Problems to Bring Back the Irishman

I’m still working on that banister, but there’s not much to see just yet. Luckily, there’ still plenty to plan.

It’s been a while since I’ve had the Irishman help me, maybe all the way back to drywalling. But now this summer he’ll be back to help me with finish carpentry! He’s not consistently available, but I’ve decided to keep just about every Saturday open. If he can’t come, I can sleep in till 8 and take breaks when I’m hungry. If we come, he works without stopping 7-3 on coffee and cigarettes alone. Though his coffee is like half milk so I guess there’s a little food value in it. As nice as it’s been to have only free labor these last few months, I have a few problems that will be a lot easier with a master carpenter’s help. I have them in order here, starting with the jobs I think are the most important.

The first is these doors. I need them cut down and re-mortised for hinges so I can move forward with the staining. Their sizes are all fine, but their previous owner was abusive. Abusive! One of them is going to need to be cut down about a half an inch! Luckily I don’t need to re-mortise any doors for the doorknobs. But more on this later.

Then, my parents definitely want the armoire lined with plywood and fitted out with adjustable shelves. While we’re at it, I need a new upper panel for the basement stairway door. The original one was busted out and replaced with subfloor grade plywood. At least it was better than OSB! I’m putting this second in importance, but it may not be second chronologically since we have to plan and buy materials.

Then there’s this big pile of trim. When the floor finishers come I have to find someplace else to put all this, and I’m tired of moving things around, so now the plan is to install as much as possible.

The door jambs and baseboards are going in after the floors are done. The finishers will charge less and do a better job with very little edging. But window sills and jambs, the bathroom door (!!!), and all the bathroom trim (!!!!!) can move forward right away. Paint may have to wait. My first plan was to do all the trim and doors with a sprayer, but now I just want to finish all the doors with a brush (some stained and some painted) and paint the trim at my own pace after I have furniture in the house (!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!)

And finally, I can consider shelves in the closets and upper cabinets in the kitchen. I have a lot of nice shelves that my friend’s parents had left over and were gonna toss in the trash. You might remember some of the doors I hoarded for no good reason. The shelves are from the same basement. Along with a piece of plywood sheathing that went in around my back door. And maybe it makes sense to put in the upper kitchen cabinets since I already own them?