Staining the Woodwork

With the ceiling’s first coat of plaster done, I’m going to give a shot to staining the wood molding first and then plastering. Applying the stain always results in some getting on the walls. I usually do one coat of plaster and then stain, but with the new plaster, it’s hard to wipe up the stain because it’s very porous. Also there’s always a drip of plaster on the woodwork and it makes very dark blotches when the wood is bare so I figure I’ll put a little bit of a protective coat of stain on to help block any blotching from the lime plaster. I tape up the walls around the window frames and baseboard and then do a final pass over the wood with any filler touch-ups and sanding. At this point I’m doing a light sanding with 220 or even 400 grit. There’s not much grain raised from the water dye because the wood is old and tight. There are a few spots that are a little fuzzy from all of the stripping and scraping so on those I’ll use the 400 or a green ScotchBrite pad or a paper bag to burnish the wood back down to a smoother finish. For any filling, I use either plastic wood or Goodfilla filler. Both are quick drying. The epoxy repairs I did previously are pre-treated with some acrylic paint to see if I can blend them in. Applying the oil stain directly to the epoxy always results in a different color because the epoxy soaks up the stain a lot more than the wood and it leaves a dark spot. I’m hoping the acrylic paint will provide a little buffer and also simulate a wood tone so when I apply the oil it blends better. There’s a few spots where there’s still some white paint haze that I try to buff out using the sandpaper, but at some point you just have to go for the next step and stop futzing around.

I apply the stain mostly with a rag, but also use a brush to reach the joints and recessed areas of the molding. In the past I did a coat of BLO and turpentine followed by shellac before the stain which worked OK, but also made the stain take forever to dry and also require a lot of wiping as the oil would bead up on the wood. Without the extra steps, the stain does soak into the wood much better and I don’t need to babysit it for hours removing the beaded up stain. It does appear a little darker though, but not anything to be concerned about.

I then move to the baseboards following the same process. One thing I notice with the baseboards is that they are blotching a bit more than the window molding. I probably should have used a pre-stain sealer on these because unlike the window frames, the baseboards have large flat expanses of wood with no fluting. I try to smooth out the blotches using a dry brush dipped in stain to try to even things out, but I think I’ll need to come back to the baseboards for a second pass after they dry.

One area of the baseboard I don’t stain is one wall that I haven’t completed cleaning and securing. There’s a small section of wall with a bunch of outlets/switches that I’ve been lagging on because I need to take a little more care scrubbing down the plaster with TSP to avoid dripping into the electrical outlets. I finally get that done by taping the outlets off and using a surgical approach. I then work on plaster washers and Durabond on the wall, and finish stripping the paint from the baseboard.