When I left off last weekend, I put a coat of stain on the door and then decided to orient the door vertically rather than leaving it laying on the work table. My thought was that it would avoid having dust falling on to the door if it was standing vertically. The problem is that the linseed oil stain takes forever to dry, I come back to see the stain is no longer evenly covering the door, but is instead is dripping down the entire door. Also, because the stain pooled up when dripping it seems like it is no longer drying and is still tacky to the touch. I start repairing the damage by scrubbing the stain using steel wool and mineral spirits. Some of the spots are so drippy that I need to strip off back to the wood.

So another door adventure and when I get tired of sanding the door, I head back to the bedroom for another coat of clay paint on the ceiling. I apply the paint using a brush and it does take a while to cover everything. On the previous bedroom I brushed the paint in random directions, but in this room I try tipping the paint off by brushing in the same direction. The problem is that this ends up with a lot of lap marks where there is a noticible color difference. The ceiling looks OK, but I’m not too happy with the lap marks so I am going to email Bioshield to see if they have any advice.

On to another ceiling where in this case it’s more removing of popcorn. For this I continue using a spray bottle with water to moisten up the popcorn and then a paint scraper to knock the popcorn off. Under the popcorn is a layer of paint that appears to be an older oil paint because it is adhering very strongly.

After all the paint and varnishing is done, I install brass curtain rods in the bedroom and hang some lace curtains that came with the house. This saves me from having to buy new ones, but the lengths for some reason don’t match with one curtain stopping at the sill and the other curtain going to the floor.

In between scraping the ceiling, I keep working on the doors. The closet is moving along with getting coats of Waterlox varnish applied using a rag. I get most of the popcorn off and try using the Speedheater on the paint, but it doesn’t seem to do much and it doesn’t easily bubble off.