To Wax Or Not

It's Saturday morning early. The light from the breakfast room extends a few feet into the yard to reveal our palm tree and the vine that strangles it. Normally you can hear our frogs croaking and croaking and you can hear the waterfalls from our koi pond and the blue jays whistling, but the cool weather has quieted the frogs, and these new windows (along with the extra insulation I've put in the walls) block out much of the sound from outside.

Just for fun, I open and close the windows to hear the difference. Our old metal-frame windows had collapsed on one side, so you could never actually close them all the way. But at least you could hear the backyard.

Today I'll be working on the baseboards and trim, replacing the pieces that were damaged when I took everything apart at the start. Then I'll paint them white and we can put all of the furniture back where it goes. Then I can focus on the finishing the window.

When Cheryl and I visit Lake Tahoe we usually hike down to the Vikingsholm mansion on the lake. It is a beautiful old home built, inside and out, from the sugar pines around the lake. The pine panelled walls have a nice glow to them, and the tour guides claim that the walls have never been refinished--they still have the original banana wax finish.

I'm tempted to put a wax finish on the windows. Banana wax is, apparently, hard to find but Home Depot has a bees wax wood finish. It's risky because if is doesn't look good, there's really no way to strip it off and do something else (it would require too much sanding). And how long would the finish last in Florida? So I'll probably chicken out and use polyurethane. Wuss. Nancy boy.