The die has been cast...

Guess what?!

The die has been cast...

The decision has been made...

We have a winner!!!

We have a stain!!

Here is your first look.

Can you guess which one we are going to go with?

If you chose the second color from the left you would be correct.


Here's the kicker - the two colors on the left side of the board are the same stain!

Now for the rest of the story.

As you all know I have been banging my head on a rock working with different stains trying to come up with something that would work. Remember the tests I did and how bad some of them were?

Well, about a week ago I ran across the My Old House Journal site. While reading through the web site I ran across a guy named Ken who has a web page called the Old House. Now, if you got to the Wood Restoration page you will find a great write up on how he does his woodwork and his woodwork looks like ours!!

Once you read through that (which I recommend) then go to this page to see the finished woodwork. As you can see, Ken is one talented guy.

Thanks to him we have our stain. I thought "what the hey" so I decided to give his recipe a shot. In case you don't go to his site here is the recipe: "The final combination was a mixture of three Minwax stains (2 parts red mahogany, 2pts colonial maple, 3pts natural) to give it an aged wood tone it would have had from aging orange shellac".

I did a step he doesn't do and altered another step(I'll discuss these later), but used the recipe as written.

This picture just shows the sample up against the plumbing chase.

Now, back to the two colors from the same stain - I know you want to know why this happened - don't you. The reason is simple. Remember this post? The washcoat I talked about here caused the difference in color. In fact, the lighter color, the one on the left, is the one that has the washcoat under it. The darker of the two is the special recipe on bare wood without a wascoat. The washcoat was the step I added that wasn't on Ken's page.

Also, I applied two coats of the stain.

This last picture is just an eye-candy shot.

It's at an angle to avoid flash from the camera.



I thought it would be nice to show you all what it looks like with some color behind it. The wall color is about the same we plan to use in the kitchen, but the flash has washed it out.

Oh...that step of Ken's I altered (?)...it has to do with the topcoat. Ken applied 4 coats of oil based Benjamin Moore Sanding Sealer, I applied four coats of 50/50 amber shellac & denatured alcohol. This is just personal taste though. Once the staining process gets underway in earnest I might do another test board and use the topcoat he did - just to see what it will look like. I used the amber shellac this time because I've used it in the past and like the glow it gives.

Also, I have not buffed the topcoat to knock the shine down. I'm not sure if I will do this or not. we'll see how we like it once it's all stained before we do this.

One last thing.... The lighter of the two colors (the one on the extreme left) we like also so we are thinking of using it for the floors and the counter tops.

Well, till next time...

Cheers!
Larry ~

When will it ever end?!?!?

Oh man...when will this ever end?!?!?!

I'm getting so tired of working on this kitchen!! It is taking forever!!

We are closer to choosing a stain for the woodwork, but a new wrench has been thrown into the gears thanks to the evil monkey in my closet.

While re-reading Gary's posts on This Old Crack House I came across a punch of post dealing with shellac, varnish, and polyurethane. It's a group of posts called "The Shellac Chronicles" that span the period of February 17, 2006 thru October 26, 2006.

Basically he uses aniline dye in shellac to achieve his wood coloring. So...we are going to look at doing that.

In the meantime I'll be doing some of the fiddly stuff; as well as stripping the doors of that built-in cabinet.

These are the top two cabinet doors.










It has taken way longer than expected to get these stripped and I haven't touched the other side yet.

Turns out these things have two different colors on them. There are two shades of green and four shades of cream/tan and taupe. There weren't that many shades/colors on the original woodwork. The worst part is that each paint stripper I have used will only remove one, maybe two, coats at a time.

So far the wood looks nice, but it is very, very soft. I will have to be super careful when I sand these.













Tomorrow I will attempt to finish stripping these and start on the others. In between sets of doors I hope to start priming the walls.

Wish me luck.

Till next time....

Cheers!
Larry