we are renovating a 1905 Victorian. I stripped and stained the downstairs woodwork/trim (oak) and headed up stairs to work on the trim/woodwork (baseboards, window/door trim/doors) only to find that it is pine (was told possibly southern yellow pine). Well my husband hoped for a medium/dark brown stain but it looks uneven/not uniform in color. I have tried wiping stain, wiping stain with wood conditioner first, and gel stain) I don’t like it. The woodwork had shellac on it (I stripped the baseboards and three windows already). I am thinking maybe I should have just cleaned up the shellac and made it nice again. What are my options to remedy this? Can I shellac what I have stripped and clean up/add shellac to the remaining trim/doors?
How to finish pine woodwork/trim
trim
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Getting a smooth finish without purchasing an expensive HVLP sprayer is fairly easy. Start with any good grade paint, and treat it with Flotrol acrylic additive at a rate of about 1/2 pint per gallon and mix well. If you get a real thick paint, you can increase the amount of Flowtrol up to one pint per gallon max. I use and recommend Purdy brushes. For trim, I like a sash brush, (angled style). Be sure to pick out a brush for latex paint, usually a combo of nylon and poly bristles. The ends of the bristles need to be very tapered and soft. Check out the Purdy ExtraGlides for latex.
Your technique is important also. Always try to finish with long smooth strokes only using the very tips of the bristles. Properly treated paint and the right brush used well will give you fantastic results. Good luck.
The fastest/easiest way is to:
- Mount the bottom trim to the wall making sure it's good and level. If you're going to use finish nails I would also run a bead of PL or similar construction adhesive first. If that's a little too permanent for your taste use trim head screws
- Plum a line of the point of the miter up to the height of the top trim.
- Tack a side piece on the line.
- Set the top piece off of the reference point created by the miters with a few nails/screws, checking for level. Build a little leway into your rabbet so if you can keep your miters tight even if its a little off of plum and level.
- Check the other side and if it looks good finish securing your top and side. If not you might have to tune your miters.
- Once you've got everything fitted, slide the mirror into place from the open end.
- Apply remaining trim piece.
The down side to this method is that it can be difficult the get your miters to line up if the wall doesn't form a nice flat plane.
A more involved method is to create the frame first off the wall and apply around a pre-hung mirror.
- Attach a ledger to the wall at the height you want your mirror.
- Apply a liberal amount of silicone to the back of your mirror.
- With a friends help, set the mirror on the ledger and press into the wall.
- Take a few scrap blocks and screw them off to the studs above the mirror. (See drawing) As you tighten the screws the block will pull the mirror tight to the wall and hold it in place while the silicone goes off.
Don't over tighten or you might crack your mirror. All of this can be accomplished by using the mirror brackets you mentioned but then you have to notch out around them which is a real pain. - While you wait for your silicone to dry, at least 24 hours, construct your frame.
- Once your mirror is secured and your frame is dry, remove the ledger and blocking and apply the frame in whatever manner you're most comfortable with being careful not to hit the mirror with any fasteners. This method is probably overkill for you (usually it's reserved for much larger mirrors) but it does give you the opportunity to really fine tune your miters. As for expansion and contraction, it's not a concern. Wood moves very little longitudinally, only tangentially and radially.
Best Answer
Pine and spruce don't take stain evenly, due to the pitch in the wood. The usual way to deal with it is to start with a coat of shellac, although thinned varnish will also work.
When I did a set of pantry shelves out of pine I had the same problem. What I did was to start with a coat of clear water based varnish. Then I mixed clear varnish with a water based dye stain (non-pigment) stain, at about 3 parts varnish to 1 part stain. Applied enough coats of this to get to the tone I wanted.
It took a lot of coats. If I were doing it again, I might go to 2/3 stain 1/3 varnish. Fortunately the coats go on really fast.