It’s been a little quiet around here lately. My actual, money-making job has been insanely busy–we’re operating at about 1/2 staff between vacations/medical leave/maternity leave so stress levels have been through the roof and my energy level once I get home hits the floor (or rather, the couch). We’re still working away, just slowly, so I thought I’d give you a little sneak peak at my current project.
A while back I mentioned that I was sort of swooning over the white trim + black door combo. Matt, however, was Not a Fan…. but he didn’t want me to paint the upstairs doors white either and I certainly wasn’t leaving them honey oak.
Ok, I can stain them super dark, it will be almost like my beloved black doors, right? Only re-staining is rather a giant pain in the ass. But wait, there’s this magical gel stain that is all over the Pinterest! I bet it’s a miracle worker. I bet its secret ingredient is unicorn snot.* I bet it…. doesn’t do a damn thing to these doors.
Yup. I tried the General Finishes Gel Stain with minimal prep (mineral spirits and an abrasive scrubbie) and it did absolutely jack. Sure, some of the inside corners got a little darker but otherwise it was very underwhelming. Sorry, no pictures, I was too distraught. Just imagine a door that toddler wiped a brown ink pad over.
And Matt still didn’t want me to paint the doors. Matt, I’m continuing to try because I love you.
Now it was time to try what I had wanted to avoid in the first place–stripping and refinishing. Ugh. It’s not that it’s a difficult process, it’s just time consuming–strip, sand, wash, stain, poly, with waiting or dry time between nearly every step.
I had already taken 2 of the hallway doors down while I was painting the trim, so I used one of them as my guinea pig.
I’m on the fence if I think it’s really worth the effort (that’s about a week’s worth of work right there!) but Matt really likes it and marriage is about compromise or some such crap.
Actual conversation we had as I was pondering the door (which by the way, is currently just leaning in place and missing all hardware, just FYI):
Matt: We should really try to get together with some people this weekend.
Me: Sounds good, go ahead and email people.
Matt: Why me?
Me: Because I’m busy stripping and refinishing your damn doors!
I’m going to try and start door #2 tonight and try a slightly different technique once I get to the stain. I like the final color on the one I have done, but the finish is a little splotchy. It’s also worth noting that the staircase railing is going to get darkened up (and de-oranged) too, and we have dreams of refinishing the floors to be much darker (although the latter may not happen for quite a while…).
*Because unicorn tears would make it too runny to be a gel stain. Duh.