I‘ve just finished a job in a laundry/bathroom.  We removed the paper painted the ceiling, put up new paper and a border.  My customer, Carol, was so pleased.  She said to me, “You must get a sense of satisfaction when you finish a job where all the colors and accessories come together”.  That, as apposed to the jobs I do for customers who don’t have a flair for decorating.  But to be honest, there aren’t many jobs I’ve finished where the customer doesn’t do a decent job with color.  Here are a few of my patented sayings relating to color choice.

I‘m extremely familiar with customers agonizing over choosing the right color.  First Point: If you’re having real difficulty choosing between two colors, particularly if there is just a shade or two difference between them, it’s not about the color.  It has to do with you’re your inability to be decisive and to commit.  People in a quandary over color probably have a similar problem ordering off the menu in a restaurant.  Do I get the Chicken Marsalis or the Chicken Francaise?

Second Point:  It’s only paint.  If you decide on a color and it turns out you can’t live with it, you can always paint over it with another color.  It’s not like installing new kitchen cabinets and counter tops then finding out you don’t like them.  If you make a wrong decision there, changing your mind has real consequences.

Third Point: You’ll never look this hard again.  Suppose you are again, trying to choose between three shades of the same basic color.  I can put the lightest of the three on one wall and go to the opposite wall in the room and apply the darkest shade and if I didn’t tell you, you wouldn’t know they were different.  I could apply the lightest color on one wall and apply the middle tone on the adjacent wall and again if I didn’t tell you…  Sure, if you look closely you might see the difference.  But a week after the painting project is completed you are not going to enter your bedroom and scrutinize the color.  You’ll be going into the bedroom to sleep or get dressed or to hang something up in your closet; you won’t be thinking to yourself “Gee, if I only went a shade lighter”.  If you are thinking that, see “First Point” above.

Final Point (I could go on):  It’s your house and you have to live with it.  There are two basic choices in color selection, neutral and bold.  Granted, you do have to decide if you want to bring out a certain color in your scheme (ROY G BIV).  If you want to keep the room neutral, think of the color as a background, not as a focal point.  Look for your color in washed out or muted tones.

If you want to go bold, well then, bold is just that. I once had a customer who had her hall bathroom painted red.  Not “autumn red” or “sunset red” I mean fire engine red.  She had the right fixtures and tile to go with the color.  It was bold, it was different, it was definitely a statement and she loved it.  I’ve also painted a kitchen ceiling black.  Same thing -with the right wallcovering and cabinets, it was very stylish.

When I mention brand names in a post it’s because I’ve learned over the years that all painting products are not created equal.  Just as good chefs use fresh, high quality ingredients to optimize their recipes, a “do it yourself” decorating project will benefit from the use of quality tools and products.  For a couple of bucks more, a quality paint roller will be easier to use and leave a nicer looking finish than the economy roller.  The other reason I mention certain products has to do with consistency.

I use particular products because through the process of elimination they’ve become my favorites.  I’ve become comfortable using certain items over the years mainly because I’m familiar with how they perform.  When I open a can of Benjamin Moore paint or a can of Sherwin Williams stain I understand from experience, the best way to apply them; I know what’s needed in the way of surface preparation.  I know first hand the dry time and the recoat time.

If you’re reading this post, you’re doing so to gain from my experience.  My experience consists not only of how I’ve been doing things over the years but also the reasons why I do things a certain way.  In my line of work, what you’re using is as important as how you’re using it.

This is the follow-up to finishing new wood railings if you’re looking to stain the railings rather than keep them natural.  First of all, if you finish new oak railings with oil based polyurethane, in due time the natural oak color will warm-up to a very pleasing, rich looking honey tone.  If you’re not into honey tone and are looking for maybe a walnut or a mahogany or cherry tone you are going to have to stain the wood.  Follow the instructions in the previous post as far as the beginning steps.  Clean and sand to erase any defects left over from the installation.

When you wipe down the wood, if you plan on staining the wood, pay careful attention to areas that are not darkening as you wipe them down.  If the areas are staying rather pale, there might be wood glue sealing the pores of the wood.  If the gluey areas aren’t scraped or sanded clean they will not accept the wood stain and will appear as light blotches on the wood after staining.  Glue residue might be present around dowels used to hide screws.  You might also find glue around joints in the handrail where they break in another direction. Some railing installers might even glue balusters to the banister.  The good installers do a pretty good job of cleaning-up the glue.  The bad guys can leave a mess.

After you clean-up the wood, you’ll want to apply a coat of conditioner to the railing.   The purpose of this step is to allow the more porous areas of the wood to soak up the sealer.  Theoretically you should be evening-out the porosity of the wood’s surface.   There are some companies that manufacture products specifically designed for this purpose.  I thin down the “Seal Coat” with alcohol as per the directions on the can.  Depending on the porosity of the particular wood you are finishing and the amount of sanding you do after the application of the conditioner you might need to adjust the concentration of the conditioner.  It’s always good to have a piece of scrap left over from the railing installation so as to test the final color on the wood.  If you don’t take this step to even the porosity of the wood you will have some porous areas sucking up a lot of stain.  Those areas will be noticeably darker than the other parts of the project.  You can get what we call tiger grain, wild variations in the grain on one single piece of wood.  You really want the stained wood to be of relatively even color with the grain softly highlighted.

When I’m staining a project, I like to use the Sherwin Williams “Wood Classics” stain.  This is a pigmented stain.  By varying the time you let the stain sit before you wipe it, you can control the depth of color.  These satins come in a variety of colors and can be customized by either blending the available colors and/or adding universal tinting color to the stain.  These stains dry within 2-4 hours where most other stains need an overnight dry.

Apply the stain, using a bristle brush.  If you’re smart, you can buy yourself a small edging pad to use on the balusters.  Once you get the hang of them it’ll make the staining go much faster.  Follow the application instructions on the stain can.  Make sure you dispose of any stain soaked rags.  They will spontaneously combust and catch fire!After the stain is dry, I like to apply another coat of alcohol based sealer over the stain.  This ensures that the stain won’t lift up after it is rewet by the polyurethane.  Apply the 2 coats of poly as in the previous post, sanding between coats, but not too hard or you’ll sand through the stain.  After a few days, when the poly is hard, you can use a wax blend stick to fill any holes from any nails used during installation.