three year project
Happy Wednesday! It’s been raining for a few days and the property is too wet to start work on the perimeter fence which has bought us some breathing room to continue the clearing and ditching work. Of course, it’s too wet to drive the excavator too, so hopefully the timing works out. There’s a spot where the standing water is up to a border collie’s elbow and this is how I know. My mind was clearly on other things when we came in from chores and I forgot to dry him off. He just shrugged and took his wet self straight upstairs! He is so adorable, I can forgive a lot.
I was talking to my friend Renee about the pellet stove mantel project and she had some follow up questions, so I thought I’d make a post about it! She asked about the tile making, but until then she didn’t know that I was writing here, so I forwarded my post containing a highly detailed and probably incomprehensible description of the process. After that she decided not to ask any follow up questions, so either I answered all of her questions in the post, or she couldn’t take any more. The other question was about whether I refinished the mantel.
We/I did this project last fall, before I started writing, but I did take some photos so I can attempt to remember what I did and write it here! Firstly, I want to mention that this mantel is 5 feet wide and 7 feet tall. Four of us loaded it onto the trailer, but there were two of us to unload it and bring it upstairs. One of us is really strong and the other one tries to make up for weakness with enthusiasm. We got it in place, but the next morning my body reminded me of the effort.
Here is what it looked like when we bought it:
The piece is oak veneer over some other extremely heavy wood and there was some damage to the veneer and also just general wear of the finish. The eBay listing maybe didn’t have photos of the veneer damage, or maybe it did and I missed them somehow, but I was expecting it to be in better shape. I did some research and decided to use a product called Quikwood to fill the gaps and gel stain to make them blend in. I have a long history of using gel stain with much success. At the old farm, the family room has boxed beams made from rough cut lumber that were painted an orangey brown when we moved in. I am guessing they painted them this vaguely wood-ish color because the wood had stains or black saw marks or something, but they didn’t really look their best. We stained them with gel stain directly over the paint and the outcome was incredible!! Since then, I’ve used it a few times and it is such a great tool for working on old furniture without doing a messy refinish. One thing about me is that I always want to get to the meat of a project, I hate fannying around with prep work. Truly refinishing anything is not a project suited to my temperament or attention span.
I didn’t take any photos of the Quikwood portion of the project, but there are better instructions elsewhere anyway. It comes as a two part epoxy dough, so you tear off the amount you need and then knead the two parts together until the color is uniform. Then you press it into the place where the veneer is missing, making sure that you have filled it all the way and spread it evenly to all of the edges. When it’s dry, you sand it flat and that’s pretty much it. Definitely something at my skill level. Once the Quikwood is dry, then you need to stain it with the gel stain. Fortunately this piece is uniformly dark which made this step easy. A lighter oak or another wood with a strong grain would be much harder to match. Someone more artistic or patient than me could do it, but it’s not something I would attempt. I did buy two colors of stain to try to recreate the grain, but I am not sure I needed to because it ended up a pretty solid color anyway. You can see the repairs below. They aren't perfect by any stretch, but they really aren't noticeable in person.
Since I was at it, I ended up going over the whole piece with the gel stain. I find that in a piece where you have wear to the original finish, the stain will grab onto that wear, and you will be able to wipe the stain off the places where the finish was intact. Depending on the color and the state of the original finish, this may result in an overall darkening of the piece, so I wouldn’t try this on an heirloom piece, but if you are just going for ‘better’, it usually works! I work in very small sections, maybe 6x18”, I wipe the stain on one section, wipe it on a second section, and then wipe off the first section with a clean rag. Then I wipe the stain on a new section (#3) and then wipe off #2 and continue in that fashion, so a pretty short contact time. I think we let it sit longer on the beam project because it was a painted surface. I would recommend testing in an inconspicuous place!
I forgot to say that the first step for me was to clean the whole mantel with soapy water and then I used a furniture cream on it to get some moisture in. A week or two later I started the repairs and the staining. I’m not sure if this was the right thing to do, but it seemed to work out OK?
As you can see above, the project is complete! I am really happy with the outcome!