Finish the house first!

Off and on over the next few months I would go to my moms and check the trailer out. Finally I couldn't stand it and went by there there with tools in hand. Lets see, what do I want to take off first? I decided to start with the closet door.That would be easy! Well maybe not so easy, two layers of paint and you could barely see the screwheads. It took an hour to get them all out. I headed back home with the door in the van and once I got there found some really old stripper of my wife's. I started wiping it on and it lifted the sirst layer of blue, reapplied it over the white that was under the blue, let it sit, got my scraper and started to scrape. There before me was the most incredible grained white birch I have ever seen. I call it crazy grain. After bugging Colin at GSM he told me that the look you want to end up with is honey colored but when I applied sanding sealer it was too dark and splotchy looking. I had some sales calls in Atlanta the next day and on the way back I stopped at highland woodworking and asked them how to even out the splotches. They told me to strip off the sealer and apply wood bleach. When I got back home I removed the sealer then mixed up the bleach which is a large crystalline white dry flake. Mixed with the hot water I brushed it on the door, left it on for 10 minutes and then applied more. One more time and wait 10 more minutes then rinse it off with the hose. Each application lightened the birch and at the same time evened out the color differences from 50+ years of humid georgia weather. The pictures are of the difference sanding sealer makes on bare birch. The other pictures are of the reveal after fifteen minutes of stripper time. WOW! Look at that grain. I still can't believe that someone could paint over anything that beautiful. I'll try to post some more pictures of the effect the wood bleach has, my last try didn' t come out very well .

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