First up is a 2nd coat of Bioshield’s Mont Blanc clay paint. I apply this with a brush and go in the opposite direction compared to the first coat to blend things in. The clay paint is a bit heavy so there will always be some brush marks and texture to it. After the ceiling is done, it’s back to the woodwork for a 2nd coat of stain. First we do a light sanding with some fine steel wool to try to remove any glossy spots and also knock down any remaining raised grain. We also touch up any areas that still have white flecks poking through the stain. The stain is applied and then wiped off and with the 2nd coat it gives the finish a bit richer look.

With the stain all done, I do a few spackle touch-ups on the soffit to close up any gaps between the soffit and ceiling and then start scrubbing the floor. The next steps will be to shellac the woodwork and get the floors refinished so I want to try to get any of the years of gunk off the floor before the sanding starts. The floor has about 3 different eras of finish on it with some opaque brown paint, remnants of newspapers that were put down under the linoleum rug, and finally the original stain.

We take a break to hit Ocean City for some estate sales. One of the sales was for a demolition of a 1920s cottage. The house is very simple with 1 story containing a living room, dining room, kitchen and 3 bedrooms. There’s a second floor, but it’s unfinished. Nothing looked wrong with the house, but sitting next to the neighboring 3 story luxury new construction surrounding it, you can see its days are numbered. The small cottage is not architecturally significant and it’s true that it doesn’t satisfy the needs of the current home buyer, but the problem is that the current home buyer in Ocean City is dropping almost a million dollars on a 2nd home. If you asked a person looking to buy a home for 200K if this little cottage would meet their needs, I’m sure they’d be happy to live there.

Back at the house, I finish up the work by continuing to finish the doors. The main door is pretty much ready for wax, but there’s still an imperfection I’m trying to touch-up. I add some darkened shellac to the blotch and then re-sand the area before padding out again. I think this is as good as I can get it.

I start on rubbing out the shellac on the closet doors. I try using a coarser grain of 320 to start and I find that cuts through the shellac too quickly so back to starting with 400. After 400, I use 600 followed by steel wool and get most of the roughness out of the finish. I rinse everything off with mineral spirits and then will pad out the finish to smooth out the haze from sanding.