Things start off with another coat of stain on the door. I learned my lesson to try and do multiple thinner coats rather than globbing a ton of stain on to darken things in one step. The key is removing the stain before it dries because on doors, it will stay gummy. I’m not sure if it’s the type of wood used on the doors, but I never seem to have this issue with the baseboards and molding. The stain seems to absorb more where it sits on top of the wood with the doors.

The shelf is coming along with a coat of Tried and True to finish things off. The Tried and True finish worked pretty well and was easy to apply. These rubbing finishes are so much easier to work with compared to brushing.

Some woodwork odds and ends is one of the shelf brackets that needs stripping and refinishing. I get all the paint off and will stain this with the same Minwax as used in the closet.

There’s one more hole in the closet. Initially I was thinking to skip this because you can’t see it unless you poke your head into the closet, but things are looking so good, why not make this 100% fixed. This hole is another HVAC cut and opens up into a soffit that holds ductwork. Near the hole is a pipe from the chimney that was used for stoves in the two adjacent rooms. The pipe is coated in old paint so I apply stripper to that to remove. It starts coming off pretty easily.

I don’t know if this is needed, but since I have a bunch of extra Rockwool insulation and access to the soffit, I stuff some insulation into the soffit. I remove the existing broken lath and will replace with a piece of sheetrock. Because this is the closet and a hole that is probably the least important part of the house, I’ll break my traditional lath and three coat plaster approach.

I pause on the hole and move to starting a skim coat in the closet. I’m going to try using US Limework’s fine plaster. I haven’t used this one before so I want to try it out with a less than critical application. Before I apply the skim coat, I put down a coat of PlasterWeld on the walls. PlasterWeld is used to help plaster adhere to surfaces. Because I’m not doing a full stripping of the paint, I figure this will be a good insurance policy to help the plaster stick.

The Limeworks plaster needs to be mixed unlike Master of Plaster. I get it mixed, but I notice some issues. As I’m applying there are dry granular chunks in the mix that burst open and spread unmixed plaster into the surface. It’s not terrible to address because I can trowel them out, but it’s annoying. As much as I try to mix the plaster, I can’t get rid of these little unmixed pockets.

One final revisit to the door. The stain has dried so I buff it out with steel wool and mineral spirits. Maybe I’ll start on shellacking again?