gobble gobble

It's fairly frantic around here. I'm desperately trying to get some things done before we head out of town tomorrow morning for Turkey Day. Somehow, I woke up this morning to an overflowing laundry hamper and no clean diapers. The house looks like a tornado hit it. The dogs (Otis and Mr. P's dog Pretzel) have to go to the vet to be boarded for the weekend. And, my "I bit off more than I can chew" project from last weekend is still kicking my tail. We decided to refinish the front door as it was having some issues. We are lucky enough to have a gorgeous solid wood front door. However, the previous owners' great dane and years of afternoon sunshine had taken their toll on the door. It has turned out to be a much bigger job than I anticipated. For starters, I didn't think I'd have to sand the door all the way down to the bare wood, but the front of the door was in such shape that one swipe of the sand paper on parts of the door went all the way to the bottom, which meant the whole thing had to be taken all the way to bare.

That was the first issue...realizing that a pack of sand paper wasn't going to do the job. Trip to Lowe's. We now own an orbital sander. As I hadn't anticipated actually re-staining the door (the plan was to smooth out the rough spots and add some new coats of spar urethane), I hadn't bought stain. No trip to Lowe's this time, though. There was a can of stain in the garage. As the only wooden surfaces in the house are the front door and the parquet floor in the entry and they are/were both the same color, I just popped it open and went to work. Don't make this mistake, people. Actually look at the color- or at minimum the name of the color. The door was previously fairly light. It is now dark walnut. I wasn't upset because dark walnut is actually my favorite finish. The new problem was that the front of the door and the back of the door were two seriously different colors. At first, I ignored it. I acted like it wouldn't bother me. Yeah, right.

Last night, I'd had enough. I didn't want to use the orbital sander, though. It's loud and I could only work on the little (ahem...massive) project while S was in bed. Besides, the guy at Lowe's had told me I didn't need to sand to the bare wood- I only had to get the urethane off the top. So, I sanded the back of the door by hand until I thought my arm would fall off. Then I started slapping on the dark walnut stain. That was 9pm. Yesterday. It is now 1pm. Today. It still isn't dry. It really doesn't want to soak in through the old finish. I fear that I'll be forced to re-do last night's work and actually use the power tool.

So, I'm trying to get this little project completed before we're gone for four days. Plus, I'll be putting down a new coat of polyurethane on the entry floor this evening after S goes to bed since Otis will be out of the house. It's just insane around here. Plus, I haven't started packing yet. How could I? Everything is in the frickin' washer.

I'm done with my nervous breakdown. Have a great Thanksgiving, people. We're out.