The photos are slightly out of order, but you can see what the doors looked liked when first installed. These are the three exterior doors on the second level. They are 8' french doors made out of solid alder wood (knotty), and they are gorgeous. The outside of the doors needed to be stained to match the window trim. I chose two different colors, and ended up going with dark walnut. It was SO dark, but the color matches the window trim beautifully. The other decision came with choosing to stain the exterior (one coat) and then poly (2 coats), but putting only 2 poly coats on the inside of the doors. It will be easier to understand when you see the entire finsihed project on the inside, but especially because the knots are just amazing and I really wanted to show them off.
I love to stain (and paint) so I never considered having anyone else do this part of the job. That said, while I have stained a lot of things in my life, these doors are SO big. I might never have finished them in the two days I had if Wesley had not jumped off the dozer and helped me (he felt sorry for me). I paint and stain freehand because I detest painter's tape. This adds to your work time, but I think the end result is better. I had to stain the outside trim (and not mess up the much lighter CWF that had just been applied to the west coast cedar siding the day before), and not get any of the very dark stain on the inside of the doors that were simply going to get a clear coat. Stressful, but I am very, very pleased with the end result. After everything else is done, I plan to go back and do some light sanding on a few mistakes and then apply the second (and final) poly coat. (don't worry I haven't pulled the film off the windows on the doors yet :)
Before I close, I have to tell the broken door story. There is a photo of the latch at the bottom of one of the doors ~ it was broken. It took weeks for me to get the attention of the door company, and after all of that it took them 30 mins to mail a $14 part and 30 mins for the GC and his crew to fix it. Is that nuts?? Yes, it is. Just one additional disappointment I have in that firm.
The lesson for this week is that everything takes longer to accomplish than you think...I thought it would take two days to do all 3 doors with all 3 coats AND I would get the deck done. Yeah right?! :) I am so naive (aka stupid).
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