Blog de Puree

As most of our family knows, we live in a bungalow home. From the research we’ve done so far, it looks like our home is a hybrid of the craftsman bungalow and a beach cottage. (We’re a scant 5 miles from the beach.) Since moving in, we’ve been planning and working to shift the house more to its craftsman roots, especially since previous owners had painted over all the woodwork and “modernized” it.

Anyone who has ever stepped foot in a unique craftsman bungalow knows about the amount and exquisiteness of the woodwork found within. While we do want to achieve that level of detail, we don’t want it the interior to be drowned with wood, so we’re hoping to find a balance between craftsman detail and modern materials–and still maintain a tasteful amount of wood. This weekend was all about achieving that part of our goal in our kitchen and dining room.

The work started late Friday afternoon and evening with the final sanding and priming of the dining room ceiling. Even more importantly, we taped around all of the wood trim that was to be stained this weekend.

After attending the baby-naming of our handsome, new nephew and welcoming him to the family on Saturday morning, we hit the house with a vengeance. Working late into Saturday night, we first gave the dining room ceiling a first coat of paint–the same color as the kitchen ceiling. Then we applied a coat of wood conditioner and stained all of the trim, columns and borders.

Come Sunday morning, we were back at it, with a second coat of stain to even light spots and even out a nice, deep, dark brownish/red color to match the cabinets as best we could. Later in the day, it was back to painting the kitchen and dining room ceilings with a final coat to ensure color consistency throughout both rooms and cover any stain that may have got on the ceiling from working on columns and top-level trim.

As we rolled into Sunday night, we cleaned up for the tradesmen to make their way in this week once the finally cabinetry comes. With any luck, we’ll have our kitchen back by the end of this week or early next week.

We also made a few discoveries this weekend.

1. If you’re looking for the best stainable wood, white pine is the not the way to go. While most of our wood took the stain quite nicely, any parts with unknown chemical or glue stains stood out a bit lighter. Pine is also known for not taking stain as evenly as other woods, but when you’re on a budget, we found that the look is pretty darn close to what we were going for.

2. Applying wood conditioner is very important before you stain.

3. You can’t sand enough before you stain. We found that even using 150-grit, then 220-grit, was not enough. It’s possible that we should have then used a 3rd sanding stage with 320 grit-paper or sponges.

4. Sand with the grain, always–no matter how small the piece of wood and how tight the spot. When you stain, the areas that were sanded against the grain will stand out like a sore thumb.

5. Keep the area well ventilated while working. We’re crazy enough, without becoming further brain-damaged.

6. If you can plan and afford it, it’s sometimes easier to have as much pre-stained and polyurethaned before installation. Makes life a lot easier.

7. Make sure, if you have an indoor cat, to have screens on the windows or not to open them to wide or you’ll waste valuable time playing neighborhood tracker, while shaking a can of tuna treats.