Laziness never pays (well, almost never)

You know by now that I’m apt to take the lazy way out of most jobs.  It’s in my nature, I just can’t help it.

If there’s a shortcut, I’m all over it.

So when Jason asked me to build him a bench from a bed, and said that he wanted it stained rather than painted, I started thinking of ways to avoid a ton of sanding.

One product I’ve used in the past pretty successfully is the Minwax PolyShades line of stain and poly all in one step.

According to the directions you can apply this directly over existing finishes.

So I got a can of the Bombay Mahogany Satin and went to town on the bench.

Only this time, I screwed up.

It could be because I had sanded a lot of the finish off already, or maybe it was the foam brush I decided to use.  (bad idea)

Maybe it was the high humidity that day.

The stain went on sloppy, and all the brushing in the world did not improve it.

For some reason I got stubborn about it and decided to finish the entire thing, even though I didn’t like how it was going.

Perhaps I thought the second coat would make it better, or that it would dry ok….

I can’t really explain it. 

Guess I was in denial.

I even tried to put the second coat on it, to see if it would even out.  It didn’t.

It was even more horrible if that’s even possible.

OMG, this was the nastiest looking stain job I ever did see. There was no way I could give it to Jason this way.

Poor Mike got his head bit off when he came home just then and very innocently said

“Wow, that bench is looking fantastic!. Love the finish.”

I may or may not have grabbed a hammer and chased him around the driveway with it.

(I know I wanted to!)

I got up Saturday morning and decided it was time to take my medicine for being so lazy.  It took me the greater part of the day to sand off all that nasty polyurethane.

Goodbye, good riddance.

I have learned my lesson the hard way.

Now that I was back to square one, it was time to pick out another stain.

(Remember how lazy I am?)

I chose this gel stain that promised it was easy to use, needed no brushes, and most importantly, “no sanding between coats”!

Even after a hard lesson like I had just had, leave it to me to still look for an easy way out….

The only “tools” I needed were 3 old socks.  One to apply, one to wipe off the excess, and one to buff with.

(and a pair of dish gloves to protect my hands from being stained for weeks)

   

I was thrilled to death after just one coat. 

Things are looking up again.

Thank goodness! 

I may finish this job yet.