Letting the Stairs Dry

It's a waiting game now, waiting to see how time and the traffic of doggy toe nails will treat the stairs. I can tell that the finish is getting a little harder each day as it dries out. I'm using that same varathane that I put on my office floor a couple months ago, and my floor is as hard as a rock now.

So during this hardening phase we only allow the dogs to come upstairs once or twice a day. Of course Willow had to supervise, approve and take credit for the finished product.

The air conditioner guy stopped by on Thursday and, literally, walked into the house without knocking. He had called to let me know he was coming. But I had never met this guy. And who just walks into your house without knocking? He walked in wearing heavy work boots, then started to approach the stairs to get to the ladder on our balcony, and I yelled at him to stop. No shoes on the stairs! I made him get up to the roof from the outside. We did not establish a friendship.

Life is all about learning new things. For me, using stain on the stairs was a new thing. I've always avoided stain because natural wood is usually beautiful on its own. And stain can be a problem with damaged wood because the pigment can soak into deep scratches and darken them. But I was able to sand away most of scratches before staining.

If the stairs have lost any character as a result of the severe sanding I gave them, I don't really feel it. Plenty imperfections remain, and I'm not sure whether to brag or feel shame about them.

We're waiting now for more tile samples for the stair risers. More later.