I've applied the first coat of polyurethane to the woodwork slated for finishing at this stage. Next is to lightly buff it with 0000 steel wool to knock down slight imperfections, then wipe it clean and apply a second coat. Perhaps a third.
The first coat went on pretty good, but you could tell the wood was really soaking it up. Even in places where the previous finish (shellac I think) had mostly remained, it still took a fair amount of poly. The surfaces I covered took just over 1/2 a quart. I expect the second coat will take the remainder.
We are very pleased with the richness brought out by the tinted poly, and of course the base stain. Another one or two coats will really make it look nice and give it a long-lasted high quality finished surface!
One of our favorite looks is the "many years of paint and finish maintenance look of old National Park lodges and buildings". When you can picture that level of "look" then you get the image of what we're trying to mimic.
Another long-term desire for us is to have an old - but well cared for and maintained - "cabin in the woods" on our own mountain property. But every time we seriously consider such a venture we always conclude we are more of the "let's go down the road to the next place now" kind of people. With this camper, we may well be approaching a combination of those two manifestations of our natures.
Two shots of the ceiling. If you look close you can see the difference between the main room ceiling, and the untouched cab-over ceiling.
A dinette corner
An upper cabinet. I also stained and poly-ed the insides of these cabinets for looks, luxury and ease of cleaning. The shelf is regular plywood (without a finished veneer) and we simply stained and poly-ed both top and bottom. As you sit at the dinette looking up you'll more clearly see the bottom surface, so we may treat it differently in future if it doesn't look right as finished. The original finish on the non-veneered wood portions of the cabinet interiors and shelf (top & bottom) was a sort of flat milk-chocolate brown paint.
This picture shows the original plastic laminate material that was used for the factory stove-top surround wall covering. A similar but slightly different pattern had been used for the counter-top and dinette table. I retained this cabinet piece for two reasons, 1-to have it available for future showcase and 2-because I would have had to remove the cabinet to remove the plastic and chose not to go to the trouble.
The second picture has a similar piece left at the cabinet end cap, an untreated original piece of finish, once again for future showcase. It could have been a better picture, but you get the idea.
And here is a corner where the wall, cabinet and roof all meet...
The welting (gimp) was fairly easy to brush around, but even so I had to come back multiple times with a mineral spirits dampened rag and wipe the welt clear.
