I’m working on the front door. It gets a lot of abuse from the sun. After a while the polyurethane disappears (where does it go?) and the door needs to be stained and repainted with polyurethane. So today was the day. Over a month ago I bought the polyurethane, but the weather was too hot to use it. I had to wait until cooler times because the front door had to be removed and the house would be open to the elements. This morning I went to Home Depot and bought wood strips and a small drop-cloth. I removed the door and brought it into the garage to work on it. I sealed up the open doorway to keep people, pets, and pests out with the wood strips and drop-cloth.
Next back in the garage I sanded the entire door with my power sander, and then hand sanded it too. Katie came out with a drink of water and then helped me with the first staining. I applied the red-oak stain with a brush and she rubbed it off with clean cloths.
I let it dry for 5 hours before putting on the second coat. I’m worried that we’re not going to get this done today and it’ll extend into tomorrow – with a hole in the front of our house. While waiting I painstakingly cleaned off the brass kick-plate, door handle, and lock surround to remove all the lacquer on them.
This should allow them to patina naturally and allow them to be cleaned easier in the future. After 5 hours it was dark out and I applied one more coat of stain. It was too late to start polyurethaning so Katie and I rehung the front door. More to follow…