House in Progress Diary

What about just doing a clear coat? I don't know how historically sensitive it is, but we've just completed refinishing our fir floors in the attic (nearly done with the attic renovation -- pictures coming soon!) and we chose just to do a polyurethane finish instead of staining. The wood has a lovely deep blondish hue, but with streaks of darker, redder tones that's really stunning. (We had toyed for a time with using a dark stain close to the color of the original woodwork downstairs, which is a deep mahogany/cherry color, but I'm glad we didn't.)

i would recommend Sikins stains. It was the only stain our gargage door company (Designer Doors) would guarantee. Of course garage doors would get more weather exposure but you have to take that into account. There is, I believe, a three product/step process with this stain. It truly turned out gorgeous. My vote is to go with a rich reddish brown and really bring out the life of the wood! We have since used the stain on the outside of new exterior french doors as well and are extremely pleased with the outcome.

I’ve become a big fan of boiled linseed oil and turpentine. You will need a protective coat over it, but that is true for any stain. Maybe an oil based poly on top. What I would do is go to the lumber yard and get a 6 foot 1X6 fir board (or what ever kind of wood the door is made of) and put tape on it to break it into six sections. They try six different finishes on it and see which one you like the best. A lot of stains you can buy in little ½ pint containers.

Whatever you do do NOT use polyurethane on the exterior of the door unless it is for outdoor use. Polt reacts with UV light and will break down and chip off. You may want to try five coats of shellac for a nice amber orange hue but you'll have to put something over the shellac if it will get wet.

Sorry, I had an after thought. Buy some tubes of artist oil paints, these colors; raw umber, burnt umber, raw sienna and burnt sienna. You can mix your own stain by mixing these and rubbing them on your wood using some paint thinner. If you use more thinners then the color intensity will be less. These are the same pigments used in oil based stains. The negative is that it may take a day or two to dry. I used this to match some flooring. You can also mix the paint with wood putty to patch holes that are close in color to the original wood, again the drying time will be longer. If you just use one color as a stain on new wood then I would suggest raw umber.

Fir is a difficult wood to stain dark. You can see the parts that are sanded more or less, and even with a conditioner, it can look blotchy. I would recommend a marine varnish, I think waterlox makes one. The wood will darken with age, I have some 80 year old fir that's almost black. The uv will make it go darker, I don't know how fast though. I think a lot of old doors were painted on the outside, and stained on the inside.

I don't have specific recommendations except to check out the book "The New Wood Finishing Book" by Michael Dresdner. This is by far the best basic book on the subject I've seen.

I finally understand why the projects I've done don't come out like I expected. Plus, it's a very realistic guide, so it's easy to figure out if a particular finish is achievable given your type of wood/time avail./money/equipment/workspace.

I'm a big fan of Prelude oil stains. I pick them up at a local unfinished wood store but I would imagine you could get them anywhere.

A few months ago I stained our dining table with the "Candlelight" stain and it instantly added about 70 years (in a good way!) to the table. It looks gorgeous.

Here

All of my interior woodwork in my 1923 craftsman is Douglas Fir - and I have used Minwax Red Mahogany, let it dry and then a coat of Minwax Golden Oak, followed by a Marine Varnish ( I have used various brands of Varnish) That combination gives the fir a warm, rich red tone that matched the original finish nicely. Test it out on a sample piece and see what looks best - That's how I came up with my mix...

What color will your house ultimately be?

I believe I read in "Bungalow Colors - Exteriors" by Robert Schweitzer that traditionally, the front doors of bungalows were almost always stained or left natural, and if any doors were painted they would be the rear doors. It sounds like you are indeed planning on going the staining route, I just thought if this when reading Derek's comments above...