Tuesday, January 15, 2008

Trim Dilemma

I have also been working on getting trim for around my windows and for the baseboard. This has turned out to be one hell of a project since I can't find anything in any hardware stores that matched what is in the rest of the downstairs. As you might be able to tell my trim is pretty wide. The baseboard is about 6-8" tall and has a 45 degree cut at the top....whereas the door and window trip is about 5" wide and rounded on both sides.
Since I couldn't find anything close to a match this trim, I ended up buying poplar boards and my dad was able to use the routing tool on his Shopsmith to make the rounded edges. After some good old hand sanding to smooth it out I was able to match up the stain color to something close to my kitchen cabinet (this took buying about 10 different samples and staining a slew of strip boards till I was able to match it up enought that I was happy). I was able to get the shorter boards stained and polyurethaned with no problem. I got the longer boards stained and decided to take a day off work to polyurethane these boards. Well that day ended up being a little overcase and when the polyurethane dried it left the boards with a foggy coating as you can see below. Of course this wasn't noticeable until the boards had dried and so here I am left delaying stripping the polyurethane. Sucks, but I guess these are lessons you learn!!!!!! I have been delaying doing this for way too long and I really can't polyurethane the boards again until the weather is nice or I have room in an indoor heated area. On the top is the cloudy coating and on the bottom is a shorter board that came out correct.



3 Comments:

At 10:24 AM, Blogger Amalie said...

Yikes! Don't tell me you can't find that baseboard...We have the very same trim in our house and need to replace a few pieces.

Though, I can't say I'm surprised. We had to replace part of a window casing and ended up ripping some wider boards down to size and rounding off the edge as you did.

As common as this trim was at one time (and as pretty as it is, in my opinion) you'd think it would be easier to come by...

 
At 10:48 PM, Anonymous Anonymous said...

I found your blog! Boo to the cloudy trim. :(

 
At 11:26 AM, Anonymous Anonymous said...

Any word on what caused the cloudiness? If I'm not mistaken I think a lot of custom trim places will create a custom knife for your trim profile for a nominal cost. Also, their trim prices tend to be a lot lower than at a Home center. It's a one-time cost, but if you are redoing the whole house, then it would be worth it. Especially if it were a supplier just down the street.

 

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