Staining Cabinets!

Before I jump into this post, John and I hope you are all continuing to do well and stay safe during these challenging times.

Above, pics from March 31st, as cabinets were being prepped.

As mentioned in a previous post, it took us a while and 20 or so stain samples to get the right stain for our knotty alder cabinetry. Color finalized, our painters got to work and we really liked the shade, even before the 3 finishing protective coats were added.

They also finished painting and did the protective coat on the painted pieces.

But when they began doing the first of the three clear coats over the stain, things didn’t go so well. They called it a “blush”.

Because it has been so humid with thunderstorms almost every weekend (annoying when you want to get out of a little rental house and hike around!), the clear coat made these white and oily looking marks on most of the stained wood. They explained that it’s like when you leave a wet glass on wood and it leaves a white watermark – there was just too much moisture in the air. Options to fix included heat or chemicals. But they could fix it, Mark, our painter, assured me. No problem, I said. Do I look worried? I’m not worried….

That was a complete lie….

I realized it had been a while since I had baked anything for the contractors at the property, so I baked peanut butter cookies (not pictured) one week and oatmeal cookies (shown above) the next week. It was also a good excuse to visit the site and check on how the “fixing” was going. I think it was a lot of work, but Mark was true to his word…

They have also begun staining the outdoor kitchen, which is made from cypress wood. As Lee (the other half of our painting team) put it, the stain will disintegrate before anything happens to that cypress wood. Apparently, cypress is difficult to stain because the grain is so tight and water repellent.

Above is the stained cypress cabinetry, with no clear coat over yet. I’m hoping we don’t have the same “blush” problems, but I will do my best not to fret…. Next up will be staining interior doors and painting walls.

So that’s our progress for this week. Thanks for stopping by!

Hugs, Libby