Finishing Wood

With carpet installed in the basement, walls painted and trim partially purchased, I've started staining the woodwork that eventually be installed along the baseboards, around the doors and windows and around the built in cabinetry.

The three color process is producing amazing results. The baseboards received an initial base coat of Red Oak about three weeks ago. A week later I applied a coat of Sadona Red which significantly warmed the dark base. Tonight, I applied Bombay Mahogany Red polyurethane. The color is rich and lush. I love it.

Here you can see a snap taken with my new camera phone (a freebie for renewing my service contract). I had to play with the contrast and brightness a little as they are wet here and reflecting a lot of the garage ceiling, which is white. When they dry, they'll get a good rub down with some 0000 steel wool.

Tomorrow my daughter and I will go pick up the rest of the wood - mostly for trimming doors. I'm trying to keep the woodwork simple and not too fancy. I'm trying to pull off a simple, pseudo Japanese / Chinese style.

To this end, the carpet was selected for an appearance similar to a Ta tame mat. The wood work is getting three coats of transparent stains to mimic the lacquered look of finer Asian furniture. The colors are dark wood and light floors and walls to somewhat match some of the "traditional" Japanese style one can see influencing some contemporary Japanese architecture today.
It's a fun, but slow project.

Hopefully I'll have some pics of the trim in place and the doors with their final paint coats on soon... probably late January at the rate things are going. :-)