An updated door

So in my adventures in blogland I keep boring entertaining my family with everyone's projects.  So on this project my honey kept saying you need to share this, you worked so hard.  Ok well here it goes.  We have a really nice front door that has battled the Oklahoma weather for over 20 years.  My original thought was replace this nasty thing.  But a door this size and solid wood - $1700.  GULP!!  So with my whopping one refinishing project behind me I felt I could tackle this.  So honey helped take down the door.
Here it is in all its glory

And now some close ups of how bad the finish was  (and I know that if I am going to keep blogging I have to learn to take better photos and using my editing software)  Oh yes - notice the cute little wreath, compliments of a blog tutorial.  I just wish I remembered which one!

Notice how bad the poly has chipped off, the places where tape totally removed the poly when one of my friends TPed the house on my birthday.  Friends - gotta love em!!

Also notice the red tint - circa 1980's anyone - to the stain.

So we hauled big and heavy door to back yard where I sanded and sanded  to get this

Augh - stripper time - insert cheezy music here

Four and a half hours later



That was as good as it was going to get.  Then I resanded with 150 and then 220 grit sand paper.  Then we hauled big and heavy into the garage, and vaccuumed the door twice.  Using Miss Mustard Seed's methods I applied 3 coats of Minwax dark walnut stain - scrubbing with steel wool and vaccuuming between coats.  The next day I applied a coat of minwax Helmsman for the Uv protection.  I found this very hard to work with and it left teeny bubbles everywhere.  After many tears  I looked on their website and many others have had this same problem.  Since I am new at this DIY stuff I figured I had better look for another solution, so just to be UV safe I sanded it - again with 220 - and put another coat of helmsman.  BTW - over 24 hours drying time per coat.  Not good for someone with my patience.  And again sanding

A side note.  Nowhere in blogland did I find a picture like this.(All the cloudiness)  When you sand clear top coat it does this.  Do not run crying to your honey that all your work is ruined.  It is ok.  The next coat covers this right up.  Honey said it is just what happens when the coverage is a little uneven.  Whew!!!!

So after the Hemsman fail, I went and bought a bottle of Minwax wipe on poly in high gloss.  I lost count of the number of coats, but I used the whole bottle.  The door is protected!!  I graduated from 220 to 320 sandpaper to steel wool.  And then final product:

And a couple of close-ups



And yes - the door is so shiny that it reflects!!  Love my hot pink tee!!

Is it perfect - uh nooo..
Am I proud - oh yeah!!
And honey is proud, too!

And I replaced the hardware with brushed nickel - hinges and knobs.  I wanted oil rubbed bronze but it did not look good with our storm door.

Hee heee - my first solo DIY!!  Honey did have to help transport big and ugly and had to do a little routing to get the new dead bolt in.  But other than that - all little ole me!!

Susan

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