Well, I finally got off my butt and made some decent progress here at El Paso foursquare. The front door has been in a deteriorating state for a while and I've been putting off fixing it for too long. As you can see it's a pretty nice looking door. It has a quartersawn oak veneer (not sure what's under it) which has probably led to it's rapid decline over the years especially since it had been in an unprotected state for who knows how long.
Here you can see a good close up of the grain. Lots of cracking and some minor chipping, so it's pretty fragile. You can't really see it here, but someone actually tried to stain over the original wood using a more reddish tone. I think it's the same stain as what's in the living room. While nice, I'm trying to restore all the wood to the natural patina and hue. This red stuff was pretty blotchy and you could still see the older color under it in some spots, so evening out the finish was a priority. I've experimented a lot with my kitchen stairs to get it as close as possible to the original color. What follows is probably as close as I'll be able to get it to.
Here I started lightly sanding with some 150 grit sandpaper as I didn't want to damage the original patina, but I also had to get the red stain off as best I could. You can see the bottom part of the door is a little darker. At one point I think there used to be a kick plate here..
This is after giving it a lite 220 grit sanding and my second coat of the magic stain I also broke out some oak wood filler to fill in the chipped out veneer. I also evened out the finish between the top and bottom (or close to it). As it ages it should come pretty close to what the original finish should be.
And now for the piece de resistance! The back windows have finally got a coat of primer on them. Honestly it took me longer than I thought, but I guess since I'm not slathering it on a blank wall it takes a bit more time to get in all the nooks and crannies of the wood detail. Next week's goal is to put on the first (hopefully second) coat of the
paint combo. It's the third one down. I'm stoked! :)
Here you can see a good close up of the grain. Lots of cracking and some minor chipping, so it's pretty fragile. You can't really see it here, but someone actually tried to stain over the original wood using a more reddish tone. I think it's the same stain as what's in the living room. While nice, I'm trying to restore all the wood to the natural patina and hue. This red stuff was pretty blotchy and you could still see the older color under it in some spots, so evening out the finish was a priority. I've experimented a lot with my kitchen stairs to get it as close as possible to the original color. What follows is probably as close as I'll be able to get it to.
Here I started lightly sanding with some 150 grit sandpaper as I didn't want to damage the original patina, but I also had to get the red stain off as best I could. You can see the bottom part of the door is a little darker. At one point I think there used to be a kick plate here..
This is after giving it a lite 220 grit sanding and my second coat of the magic stain I also broke out some oak wood filler to fill in the chipped out veneer. I also evened out the finish between the top and bottom (or close to it). As it ages it should come pretty close to what the original finish should be.
And now for the piece de resistance! The back windows have finally got a coat of primer on them. Honestly it took me longer than I thought, but I guess since I'm not slathering it on a blank wall it takes a bit more time to get in all the nooks and crannies of the wood detail. Next week's goal is to put on the first (hopefully second) coat of the paint combo. It's the third one down. I'm stoked! :)
6 comments:
Wow, the grain flecks on that front door are great. It's going to look so good when you are done.
Good job on the door, and I can't WAIT to see your paint scheme come to life on those windows!
When will we be seeing pictures of the nursery?
Hi sarah! How goes it up north? Yeah I haven't really got around to some upstairs pics (including the future nursery). I've been trying to convince wifey to let me start tearing that room apart, but no luck so far. Put in a good word for me? :)
Thanks everyone for the comments! We're going out of town for a few days for some much needed vacation, but hopefully the grand reveal won't be too far behind!
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