Pantry is complete

I bought a door kit for the pantry doors instead of buying the parts separately.  It cost a few dollars more for the kit even before replacing the door hinges.  The hinges in the kit were gold colored and Tammy insisted on brushed nickel hinges.  So I had to take off the doors to switch the hinges.  Which was just as well because...

The door kit for our pantry was not stained when we bought it from Lowes.

Tammy and I decided on Golden Oak as the stain we liked.


It has taken longer to stain the doors and door jam (frame) than I expected.  Then again, I have never stained any wood before, so what did I know?!


The first to be stained was the door jamb.  In case I made a mess of things it would be good to practice on the jamb so it wouldn't be noticeable.

The staining of the jam went well.  Two coats of stain applied by a brush and it was done.


Then it was on to the doors.

In the meantime I spoke with a knowledgeable employee at Lowes about post stain sealers.  He also clued me in to use a pre-stain treatment.  That was tricky to use as one has to immediately stain before the pre-stain treatment could dry after applying the pre-stain treatment,   Working around the windows were time consuming so I was rushed.

The first photo below shows the first door I had stained next to an unstained door.
The second photo shows the first stained door on the left next to the second door I stained on the right.  Yes, the door on the left is the same door in both photos, albeit upside-down.  Context is everything.

The difference is that for door number one I used a soft cloth to apply the stain.  For two reasons: one, people I spoke with claimed to use a cloth instead of a brush to apply the stain and two, I thought it would be easier to use a cloth to apply a stain around the windows.

It was time consuming to carefully go around the windows and I found the stain at the start would dry by the time I got to the end.  It then was hard to touch up or smooth out the stain and I ended up with a few darker areas and a few areas of blotchy looks.

For the second door I used a brush.  Each door has two coats of stain but the brush ended up applying more stain to the second door and it became darker. 

So I had to go back and apply more stain to the first door so they would match.  I was done with using a cloth except to touch up around the window corners.  So I had to carefully apply more - very light - coats of stain with the brush.  Because the new coats were so light I had to apply multiple coats.  I didn't want to risk making this first door darker than the second door.


As you can see, I placed tape on the windows which turned out to be a waste of time.  The windows were still covered in the shipped protective plastic.  Also, some times the tape was against the wood and prevented the stain from reaching it.  I took the tape off for the later coats of stain.


When talking with my uncle Curt the end of November I was confident I would be done with the pantry doors easily by Christmas.  That was before I started staining.

Slowing me down was that I did the stain inside the house as it was too cold outside.  Due to the limited room I could only work on one door at a time.

Day 1: one side of one door.
Day 2: the other side of the door.
Day 3: the second coat on side one.
Day 4: the second coat on side two.

Day 5: side one of the second door.

and so on.  Each coat was another day.

Days went by.

Once I finally got the doors to a similar shade of stain it was time to apply the polyurethane coat of sealant.

You know the drill: two doors, two sides, two coats -- multiple, multiple days.

It would have been nice to apply the polyurethane sealant outside as it had a strong smell as it dried.

As you can see multiple coats of stain left the stirring stick dark.  The other side of the stick was used to stir the polyurethane sealant.

Once the staining was finally complete it was time to permanently install the door frame and doors.

The rough opening wasn't completely square so I had sand the upper right side to get everything to fit perfectly.  A side effect is that the shelves didn't not fit once I permanently installed the door frame.  If you remember I had installed the shelves while waiting for the doors to be done staining.  Because I had now squared the door frame the shelves on one side no longer fit.

After a little more cutting and trimming they did.

Because I moved the shelves repeatedly I had to touch up the red walls with paint.

Because my hands are never clean - even after washing them with soap - I had to repaint the white shelves several times as merely washing them did not remove my dirty finger prints after handling the shelves.


After a few bonks and cuts on my head due to the re-mudding and re-painting...

I was done.  I finished the work on Saturday.  Tammy complains it took me 20 months to finish the pantry but I don't think it took that long.
 

Here are photos from the beginning of the remodel...

The final result (against an unpainted wall):

It looks a little better now don't you think?