Wood and Wall
I’m on the fence if I want to do any more work on the ceiling since it’s pretty smooth, but I could try another watered down coat to try and fill in any imperfections. While I consider that idea, I focus on moving to staining the woodwork before I start on plastering the walls. Finishing the stain before the plaster lets me have a little more wiggle room when applying the stain. If I get some stain on the wall, no worries because it will be plastered over. The one area that needs some attention before staining is a large gash in the door frame. A chunk of wood was removed for a lock and because I’m no longer running a rooming house, I fill the missing chunk with epoxy.
Chunk missing from wood.
I use Abatron’s wood epoxy to fill the hole. First with the liquid base and then mixing up the 2 different putties. I press the putty into the hole and then use some rubber sandpaper holders of various sizes to press the putty into a shape close to the profile of the molding.
Molding the repair to match the contours of the molding.
After the epoxy dries, I use sandpaper to carve out and smooth the repair so it matches the molding shape.
Sanding down the repair to match the molding.
Shaping the repair.
As the epoxy cures, I use some linseed oil paint to touch up any white spots on the molding that I was unable to remove due to stripping and sanding. I put a combo of burnt umber and white paint on my palette and then mix those to to various shades to cover up any blotches on the wood.
Mixing up the brown and white colors.
Applying spot repairs to wood.
Once I make my way through the white blotches, I move next to staining using the homemade turpentine and linseed oil paint stain. I let the stain sit on the wood for about 15 minutes and then wipe it off using paper towels.
Staining the wood.
While the stain sets, I then plaster one of the walls that doesn’t have any woodwork on it. This is a 2nd coat of Master of Plaster and since I will put wallpaper up on the walls, I won’t be going with a 3rd fine coat. Since it’s the last coat, I do a light burnishing to smooth things out, but not get that glassy finish of the fine coat on the ceiling.
Plastered wall.
Plastered wall with stained baseboards.
As I finish up the plaster, I make my way back to woodwork coated in wet stain and wipe them off to soften the look from being painted to a stain.
Left is the woodwork with full wet stain sitting on it. The right is the woodwork that has the wet stain wiped off.