The Rule of Three

Our friend Michael made it sound like we had done something right instead of doing something monumentally stupid: "Of course you have to do it again! You haven't done it three times yet. It's the Rule of Three in action! Come on, Sara, you know this!"

Indeed.

For three months, we had stripped paint from the woodwork in our family room. We had gone to bed with the subtle perfume of toxic chemicals and walked on floors coated in fine layers of lead dust. Four weeks ago, we had sat around a can of stain like children awaiting Santa Claus. We took pictures of the paint can. We oohed and ahhed. We passed the can back and forth like we were sharing a particularly tasty dessert. Finally, the anticipation had grown too much for us to contain ourselves any longer:

IT WAS TIME TO STAIN!!!!!

We careened ahead like a kindergartener on their very first day of school: board the bus, heart thumping wildly, full of anticipation; don't look back. "Oh! It's so beautiful!" I squealed as Jasun and I applied the stain to the lattice window. "Look! It glows!"

"Ok, now what?" Jasun asked, lighthearted, so proud of the fact that we'd just slopped some stain on our newly-bare wood trim.

"Now we wait a few minutes, and then we wipe off the excess," I stated, still beaming, reading the can. "This is easy!" I crowed.

Pure hubris. Damn the gods and their vengeful natures!

5 minutes passed, and we took our rags in hand, wiping excess stain in long, even strokes, and then it happened - that curling knot of worry started to form in my stomach as I watched the new wood color appear. My smile faltered. My heart sank. The trim looked like we had just washed it in river muck.

"It's the wrong color," I whispered, hoping that if I said it softly enough, it would be less true.

"No!" Jasun refused to see the obvious. Discussions ensued: heated, defeated, and finally, as we sat on the floor of our empty family room, literally staring at the stained window, willing the color to be correct...resigned. The lattice window would have to re-sanded to remove the stain that we had just applied.

Mistake #1: Test EVERYTHING before you apply it to anything more than a 3 inch square.

So we tested, and tested, and tested again. We made so many different stain concoctions that we had to re-sand a strip of baseboard just to remove all of our "options." Finally, we had a color that we loved: a rich chestnut-style brown with just a hint of red and a few gold flecks. The lattice window had been re-sanded. We were ready to go.

Take 2:
This time, assured that we had the right color, we stained all of the trim in the room....and noticed something odd as the stain dried. It looked...blotchy, uneven, like trim that had developed a bad rash. What was going on? We consulted the can:

Use wood conditioner prior to staining if you have a soft wood like pine, fir, or ash. You do not need to use a wood conditioner on hard woods like oak.

Ok, well great! We had nothing to worry about, right? We, after all, had white oak trim. It was impossible to dent the wood with our nails, so it must be a hardwood like oak, right? RIGHT?

WRONG! After consulting a professor who specializes in wood identification, we found out that we have....antique heart pine, which is only 5% softer than oak, but...still pine.

The blotchy effect was not going to go away. The pine had accepted the stain unevenly. We needed to resand.

Mistake #2: Use a wood conditioner prior to staining pine. Heck, use a wood conditioner prior to staining anything.

...which brings us to the conversation with Michael, and our current situation - The Rule of Three! There was no reason to feel discouraged after all! Sure, my hands were vibrating from 5 months of sanding; my lungs were probably damaged from breathing in toxic paint-stripping chemicals; and the lead content in my body was clearly affecting my brain function, but Cosmic Law had taken over, and the balancing power of the Rule of Three was in effect. Suddenly, I felt calmer than I had in weeks.

If you are lucky enough to have never tackled a restoration/renovation project, and thus have never been bitten by the craving that makes you, like a crack addict, come back for more frustration, physical pain, and eventual elation, then you may not be familiar with the Rule of Three. It states, simply, that any home project will take you 3 times as long, cost 3 times as much, and be 3 times harder than you anticipated when you foolishly began it, filled with bright-eyed hope and wonder.

And so, here we are! Our timeline has doubled! Our frustration levels have tripled! And we are finally, after 5 months, nearly ready to start the staining process from scratch once again....on a very small test spot.

Next Post: Take 3!