Yesterday I went out and gave the front sides of the doors another coat of poly. That's their second coat, and I didn't buff with steel wool in between.
It's a nice dry surface now! But I noticed, as dry as this wood is, there's quite a lot of absorption in portions of the wood grain, specifically where the darker, more open grain is found. I think I'll put on a third coat and see how it shapes up.
These doors are in essence, the closest, most in your face, pieces of Lil' Queeny's restored woodwork. And that concept changes little when you open a door and let it swing down. Therein lies the main reason for finishing their back sides.
Once the wood finish is complete on the doors, the frames will go back on and as an assembly, they'll be difficult to do any further finish, so now is the time. Comparably, any of the rest of the interior might be relatively easy to buff and apply additional poly.
This is what DW found the other day when we were looking for Greatroom soft floor coverings (that's fancy speak for dinette floor carpet). DW is a leaf kinda girl. Herbs and plants and leafs and stuff! And she does some great stuff with them!
It's simple stair and hallway runner from the home center. Three feet at $1.99 ft. That's cheaper than a bathroom rug at Walmart, which was one idea we had.
I had originally told her we could pick any color and pattern we could find in the dumpster behind the carpet store.
But these colors are right and it's pretty thin, so it will wrap and staple in place well.
We tried two looks. The first without a defined edge on the exposed step portion...
And a second with part of the runner border giving a visual edge to the step-up.
We chose the latter and measured where the rug edge needed to lie on the back side - 2.5" in.
I made the mark and stapled that side in place. Then pulling it snug I stapled the other side.
While planning and stapling the corners I soon realized I had to remove excess material and so re-stapled closer to the edge. Folding the corners in, I tried to prevent an unraveling condition on the corners by bunching them just a little.
And here it is with the outside edge work done. I still need to complete the pedestal hole and flange.
We are happy we chose the second look, with the border definition along the step edge. And the pattern and colors are perfect. We just HAD to place a couple of floor boards, stove top and glass tile stove surround into the mix for a beer and a marvel session before supper.
