Thursday

Yesterday I wanted to paint, but it was dashed by a request from the Boss, (aka. the wife) to work on the stairs. Karin is making the push to get the basement totally done before all the in-laws arrive in June. So I, being naive thought just a quick first coat of Urethane on the stairs shouldn’t take that long to do……I was so wrong, so completely wrong in that time assessment. Trying to paint each round baluster and Newel post, which I might add we have a @%# lot of, took forever. I started at nine in the morning and at one in the afternoon was still at it, so much for my career painting!

Here is a picture of the project, this afternoon I need to sand it all again since the Urethane brings up the grain of the wood and makes it all rough. Then the second coat goes on and the process of sanding starts all over again with steal wool: until you are ready for the third and final coat. God, I’ll be glad when this is all done!

One of the guy’s in our crit group, Geoffrey Fitzwilliam is a woodworker extraordinaire and I would be willing to bet he knows all the work that is involved in making stairs. If you get a chance check out his work at http://www.fitzwilliam.com/ I’ll have to invite him over to give this project a look.

This morning I took a break from the woodworking and painted on the flower pot piece again, it’s still not done, but at least I can take it to the crit tonight and get a few opinions. And yes I know the back ground still needs to be resolved more!

Right now I have to get back to sanding those damn @%$# balusters!!!

Richard Boyer