Primed, Painted and Poly'd Weekend Recap

Good Monday morning to you.  Another weekend hath come, Riverdanced on my ass and gone.  I hope that you had a good one and got some much needed R&R.  We did but ours stood for Rueful Railing.  I don't know what deity I owe penance to but I reaaally feel like I'm squared up now please and thank you.  Before retreat, I triumphantly did the happy dance at how I'd finally conquered the railing after a bazillion coats of everything and all I needed to do was poly it upon our return and start painting the stringer.  Well we all know how it do in these parts, don't we?  I slapped on the first layer of poly and as it dried it was clear the layers hid streaky secrets.  Despite me doing the exact same thing to the downstairs rail and it worked, this one said no.  There was only one difference and that was that I used liquid wood (I refuse to mention that devil ass product here) to give it a clean surface to cling to.  It's like it rejects any stain and they even slap a sticker on your package that says it may take 6-7 coats of stain that's not theirs that is not listed when you buy it.  You can bet your booty I sent it back for a refund. 

Time to pivot.  I made a poor man's liquid wood (water and Gorilla wood filler into a thick paste) which I sanded and it takes stain well.  But I swear the devil product still cursed the whole thing and in a fit of rage, I grabbed the paint scraper and started peeling every layer off of the rail.  Tears of anger welling up and wondering what the hell I was going to do.  The thought of painting all of the rails white again after I worked so hard to strip it off because we don't want that look anymore was more than I could bear.  I furiously searched Pinterest and came up with nothing.  I stared at the patchy, horrible monstrosity in front of me, liquid wood that refused to come off still laughing in my face and thought I'd give one other idea a shot.

Part of the process that worked before was using a "dark walnut" paint from Behr.  It is not dark walnut at all but if I watered down some Cracked Pepper paint, it could give that smoky vibe although a little too smoky for my liking on the test spot.  Okay.  So if I could get that initial color right with paint, seal it with two coats of poly then could I add a thin poly/stain mixture over the top?  

I know... sounds crazy.

source

But that's where you end up when your project repeatedly throws the whole damn toolbox at you in lieu of just a wrench.  So Friday night I filled in some spots with rage gouges and got ready for what this stupid thing was going to do.  First off, I had to prime the rail because parts of it were not stripping off and I no longer cared about getting back to bare wood.  I also primed the stringer thinking that would cover the bare wood spots since I did so much scraping and sanding to get the stubborn paint flat and level.  Nothing laughs harder than when you think you did something well enough to take a shortcut.  I told the Mr scraping was in my future and after a new blade on the paint scraper, it was easier than the last time I tried.  (To clarify, not easy...easier.)  What I also noticed...the smell of pine.  Yep, the tannins be like "hope you've got some shellac on hand because I'm still alive in here after 28 1/2 years of being covered up.  In the midst of all of that, the Mr sanded, cleaned and bondo'd our front door so we could paint it to match the color of the shutters that were painted last year.  

We've had the paint for a while so priming got done and the first two layers of paint which didn't do much because the primer was white.  We army crawled upstairs, grabbed showers and collapsed in bed.

The door paint smelled GOD AWFUL and circulated all night through the AC which left me with a delightful headache to start Sunday and the Mr was in the same boat.  We got it after some aspirin, banana and tea.  The Mr started sanding and priming the storm door (which would've looked stupid keeping it the same hunter green as the now old door color.)  I got to getting the third coat of door paint on which is the devil when it comes to painting the panels of 6 panel doors.  After that, I threw caution to the wind, and paint instructions, and polyed the railing with a 60 poly/40 stain mix.  It seemed to do the trick even though there is still what appears to be a streaked appearance to me but it's wood grain coming through so I just need to make peace with it.  I figured all remaining poly would be the clear stuff because I didn't want to keep darkening it.  While that was drying, I went out and started on the storm door.  Let me tell you, there is nothing more fun to an introvert than standing on your front porch painting as a zillion cars go by.

source

There's also nothing more me than taking your drying breaks to scour Zillow to see if a new house has popped up since you looked last night so you can get de fuq out of the house you're trying to jazz up.  

I intended to get started on the stringer but doing all of the layers on the front and storm doors along with the railing took up the whole friggin' day.  Sigh.  I was able to get a call in with my friend which was nice while the paint was drying at one point.   I've gotta be honest, I have zero hope for the storm door.  I can't unsee all of the spots it has the look of bad painting despite being careful but ask me if I care right now.  No one ever visits so we'll just wait and see how long the paint lasts and go from there.  

I'll tell ya, I was thankful I made turkey meatloaf the week before and froze it, bought a bag of red potato oven roasters and nuked some green beans for dinner.  Before we knew it, it was 6pm and I was not going to do a workout.  My shoulders hurt from the day before so maybe we'll double up today if priming and painting the inside of the door doesn't do me in the rest of the way.  Oh yeah, and getting the stringer scraped I had to skip yesterday...and shellac it...and prime it...and hope it doesn't end up bleeding through anyway.

source

How was your weekend?

====================
Get posts sent straight to your inbox on Follow It. Some posts may contain affiliate links that help keep this blog running at no cost to you.  See the Disclaimer page for more info. All posts copyright Success Along the Weigh. All rights reserved.