Staining Problems, Backyard Work
There were some problems with the staining process, unfortunately. The sanding sealer seemed to prevent the stain from taking, even after a lot of sanding down by Liz.
She’s no stranger to staining things, and has had a lot of experience staining wood. So to have this not turn out was pretty frustrating. And the only thing different about the process so far has been the use of the sanding sealer.
Bob swung by this morning, and Liz talked him through her process. When trying another board (that had sanding sealer applied, and had also been sanded down) using a different stain, we got the same result – a lot of patchy areas, and the stair tread not really taking much of the stain at all.
We tried a piece of wood that had not been treated with the sanding sealer, and that took the stain fairly well. Compared to the treated treads, it looked markedly better.
In the photo (above), there’s a smaller piece that’s been treated twice, which looks much nicer.
It’s looking like we might need to get more wood, and recut all these treads.
With us no longer needing to stain and varnish today, Liz painted another coat on the risers and beadboard while I made a run to get more mulch. We then worked in the backyard – me continuing to clean up the remaining debris from the power outage, while Liz spread mulch around the back fenceline.
We gave ourselves a cutoff of 2:00 PM. But we kept on working a bit longer, and wound up going through all ten bags of mulch I had picked up.
As a treat for ourselves (and since we were starving due to no having had lunch)… we wandered down to 53rd to check out Hyde Park Brew Fest.
There were a lot of random booths set up along 53rd, with most of the food booths situated at Harper Avenue (with a few food trucks rounding Harper Court).
The event itself was free to attend (though you couldn’t bring alcohol outside the event area). And while we did see the beer booths… you needed to buy tickets to go in for samples. I was really hoping we would be able to buy a beer from the participating brewers, but it seemed like they were all in the tickets-only section.
The event itself had some beer for sale, but it was nothing special. Shame.
Introverts that we are, Liz and I got some food, and then promptly walked out of there (past the crowds and loud music), so we could eat quietly at home.
Related:
Prepping the Basement Steps, Part 1
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