Stained Doors with White Trim?

We have started working on the doors and trim for the first floor of the house (finally!), but we're not sure how to finish the doors. By the way, I love stained wood ... Meredith likes it and tolerates my love for it. We originally planned to re-stain all of the trim and doors throughout the first floor. At some point, we decided that we would stain the doors, but paint the trim white. We had seen this in a few places, including the house on King of Queens. Now we are re-thinking that plan and considering painting the doors white as well; this is primarily because we don't want the house getting too dark, and because painting is easier than staining.

Some additional considerations:

• We have five interior doors on the first floor: two solid doors separating the kitchen from the basement and living room, two french doors separating the dining room and living room, one solid door for the first floor washroom.
• Four of the five interior doors are currently stained, so they would just need to be sanded and re-stained if we go that route (the fifth will need to be stripped first).
• Our current front door needs to be painted (the wood has been ruined by the dogs, so it would be difficult to make a stain finish look good), and we could go any route when we replace the door in the future. I love the black front door installed by the Rambling Renovators. The new exterior doors we installed in the sunroom are currently primed white, but still need to be painted, so we could go black with those as well. I imagine if we stain the interior doors, we would go black paint with the exterior doors. If we go white with the interior doors, we could do any colour we want with the exterior doors.

Any thoughts? What do you think about stained doors with white trim? Here are some pics of stained doors with white trim I found on the internet. The stain in the third photo is closest to the darkness of our stain.

Update: I was recently flipping through a book entitled Old House New Home: Stylish Modern Living in a Period Setting.  It is a great book with ideas for decorating an older home, and is very helpful with these types of decisions regarding an older home.

Front Hall Before and "During"

The front hall is not finished, as we still need to install the baseboards and paint everything (white on front door, baseboards and spindles; lighter colour on walls), and some day down the road we plan to replace the front door. However, I thought this would be a good chance to show the progress thus far. We didn't take the greatest before photos of the house, but here are a few pics of the front hall from the day we took possession. As you can see the front hall was an enclosed space separate from the living room and stairwell.

Here is a dusty pic of the front hall with the plaster removed. It was at this point that we knew the walls were not load-bearing and could be removed; once Meredith heard this, there was no stopping her from taking it down.

Here are a few pics of Meredith's parents, niece and nephew helping us take out the wall.

It's funny looking back at these photos because I remember giving Meredith a hard time that she was going to need to find a carpenter to finish the stairs because that was "beyond my skill level". After another year of renovating the house, I decided that I had developed the required skills to finish the stairs myself. Of course, along the way we also installed electrical, insulated the walls, installed drywall, primed/painted the walls, installed hardwood floors, and installed slate tile. Here are two pics of the front hall today, including the new mirror. Please ignore the ugly sheet covering the front door ... ugh ... we need to get some cheap blinds until the door is replaced.

Reclaimed Oak Mirror

We got this old mirror from my Mom several months ago. We thought about re-painting some or all of the frame, but it just did not go with the rest of our house, so I have been thinking about a way to re-frame it since the mirror/glass is very high quality.

When I was removing the wood shelves from the built-in cabinets in the living room, this got me thinking that we could use those knotty oak shelves to re-frame the mirror. Would that make this a "re-claimed" mirror? I think so.

The first step in creating the mirror was to cut the boards to the appropriate lengths, and to cut a groove in the back of each board (where the glass will sit).

I then sanded the front and sides of the boards with 60 and 80 grit sandpaper to remove the old finish and round the edges. I did this prior to assembly because I wanted to have a dramatic shadow where the horizontal and vertical boards meet.

I then joined the vertical and horizontal boards using biscuits and wood glue, as well as metal brackets screwed into the back of the boards. This assembly was too large for any of my clamps, so I held the structure together by using tie-downs (the kind you use to hold lumber in a car/truck) to squeeze the frame between two long pieces of 2x4. Clamps were also used to keep the pieces from popping up at the seams (i.e. to keep the frame flat).

I smacked the frame with a bag of nails and a screwdriver, as I thought this would add to the reclaimed look. The finished frame was then sanded with 120 grit sandpaper and finished with oil-based stain and polyurethane. Once that was dry, we inserted the mirror and prepared the back of the frame for hanging. Our lovely readers then helped Meredith discourage me from hanging the mirror in the living room, so it is now hung and looking great in the front hall. We will post more revealing photos of the entire front hall once everything is painted.

Where Should We Put This Mirror?

I built this mirror out of an old mirror and some scrap wood (more on that, as well as some better photos, later). However, we are having some trouble deciding where to hang it. The plan was to hang this mirror over the fireplace, but I didn't really factor in the added size of the new frame, so it might actually be too big for that space. The other option is to hang it vertically in the front hall. If neither of these options work, we really don't have a place for a mirror of this size in our house right now. Any thoughts on which location looks better?

1) Over the fireplace - This is where I want to put it as long as it won't look ridiculous. There would be about 1.5" from the top of the frame to the ceiling and 1.5" from the bottom of the frame to the top of the two higher cabinets (12" to the lower/middle mantle piece).

2) Front hall - The mirror actually fits well into this space and would reflect light into our living room. The door and trim to the left will be painted white soon and will be replaced altogether some day. The only issue presented by adding a mirror here is that we really need a place to hang keys/leashes/coats in the front hall, so adding a mirror here would take away the wall space needed for a rack.

Featured Tool: Saws

Grace asked for a run-down of the saws we use on our renovations, and I don't mind talking about tools at all, so here you go.

Reciprocating Saw (Skil - $70)

We did a lot of demolition work on our house, so this saw has been worked pretty hard (I would estimate we've used up 30-40 saw blades). This type of work doesn't commonly get posts/pictures, but we used it to demo every single room, including the old kitchen cabinets and the back steps.

Jig Saw (Black & Decker - $70)

The jig saw comes in handy for tight/precise cuts, like cutting Mackenzie's name out in wood on her shelf, cutting holes for ductwork, creating the curved tread and riser, and installing hardwood floors (cutting pieces around vent holes, cutting pieces in corners and against cabinets).

Circular Saw (Black & Decker - $75)

I find the circular saw to be most useful for doing depth cuts, like cutting out the subfloor without cutting through the joists, cutting a clean line in existing hardwood, and cutting kerfs to make a curved riser. It is also good for making cuts that do not require the precision of a table saw and/or are too awkward for a table saw, such as installing subfloor.

Mitre Saw (Dewalt 10" - $250)

Most mitre saw cuts could actually be done with either a circular saw or table saw, but the mitre saw is much faster and more precise. Some of its many uses: framing (e.g. bathroom extension, kitchen), cutting metal furring strips for the living room ceiling, installing trim on the second floor, cutting and mitering pieces of MDF for wainscotting, installing trim/bullnose on the stairs, installing hardwood floors. If I had to do it again, I might spend the extra money on a 12" mitre saw, as the 10" blade only cuts pieces up to 6" in thickness, which can be a pain when cutting 2x8's and our baseboard trim (which is 7+" wide).

Table Saw (Craftsman - $?)

We have actually been borrowing this saw from Meredith's parents for the last year and a half (thank you Doug!). It is very useful for precise cuts (e.g. cutting wood for the built-in bench seat), for ripping pieces down to size (e.g. cutting down and squaring off doors/frames, cutting down window frames, cutting pieces of MDF for wainscotting, cutting shim pieces to prepare for drywall), and for ripping pieces to the appropriate width (e.g. ripping down hardwood floor to meet height of kitchen tile).

Built-in Cabinets Stained

We got to work on the next phase of beautifying the fireplace in our living room. I spent most of last weekend sanding and staining the built-in cabinets. First, I had to remove the leaded glass doors and wood shelves (which will be replaced with glass shelves), and then add some extra support to the middle of the cabinets (the wood shelves were somewhat important to the structure, and glass shelves won't be able to play this same role). Most of the cabinets were sanded using 60, 80 and 120 grit sandpaper. The dentil moulding was too tight for the palm sander though, so I scraped off the old finish with a wood chisel and then tried to smooth it out as much as possible with sandpaper. I then applied the same stain and polyurethane that we used on the stairs.

Next up, we need to remove some old wallpaper and paint the back of the cabinets. We will then install glass shelves, install under cabinet lighting, and re-install the leaded glass doors.

Featured Tool: Palm Sanders

I have been doing a lot of sanding lately, so I decided to buy a new palm sander. The features are pretty much the same for all palm sanders, so I just bought the cheapest one - the Ryobi 1/4 sheet sander. Unfortunately, that was a bad decision as the clamp that holds the sandpaper broke before I finished my first project. I then returned it and paid a little more for the Dewalt 1/4 sheet sander, which appears to have a sturdier construction and has worked well thus far.

Prep Work

Mackenzie helps dad get the sander ready for sanding the built in cabinets!

"Finished" Stairs

As promised, provided below are photos of the finished stairs. We will do a full set of before and afters once everything is trimmed and painted.

For those of you who have not been following this project regularly, here is a little history. The front hall was closed off from the stairs when we bought the house, and we decided to open it up without any real plan for finishing the stairs, which sat in limbo for over a year. With some help from our readers, we decided on a plan. We then executed by building strong posts, building the curved treads and risers, installing the posts and railing, sanding and staining the railings/posts/treads/risers, and then installing hardwood on the landings.

Hardwood Vent Covers

We bought unfinished beech vent covers for all of the supply (5) and return (2) vents on the first floor. Stain and polyurethane were then applied to match the hardwood floors, and presto ... we have some classy looking vent covers.

Cleaning Up

We have been hoarding renovation waste in our backyard from the sunroom and hardwood projects (which our neighbours probably loooooved), so we finally got a bin yesterday and spent the evening filling it up. Good times!

Two Very Different Rugs

After months of occasionally looking at area rugs and never finding anything that we liked for the living room, we finally forced ourselves to get it done last week. We visited a few of the chain carpet and home improvement stores, as well as a few independent stores, and didn't find anything that called to us. Finally, we decided to visit Pollock's Carpet Market in Meredith's old neighbourhood of Roncesvalles, and found a few rugs that we liked.

We decided on this modern rug because we liked the combination of colours. We were both nervous that it might be a bit too busy, but we decided to go for it anyways.

I was proud of us for making such a bold purchase, but Meredith decided that the "amoeba" rug was not welcoming and had to go. We went back in search of another rug that we had seen that was more traditional, but would still blend with some of our more contemporary furniture. I think that was a great decision, as the new rug looks great and will not overpower the rest of the room.

Please note that these are not photos of the "finished" living room ... we still have a lot of work to do with the fireplace, bookshelves, trim and artwork, but we thought we would share our rug purchase.

Dining Room Inspiration

We are starting to look at dining room furniture, as the table in our dining room is much too small and we should hopefully install the doors/trim on the first floor over the next several weeks, so the dining room will essentially be done. We hope to use the same furniture supplier that the folks over at Life Begins at Thirty used for their set.

We like the look of the Camden trestle table with Aaron wood seat chairs, so we will be looking for something similar to those pieces, but we are going to look around a bit more still.

Also, I love this cool vintage bar stool from Restoration Hardware. I'm not sure if we will go for that, as we will need three counter stools and it is kind of pricey, but I think it would look great with our kitchen.

Stairs Phase 6: Sanding and Staining

Last Sunday, when all of Canada was celebrating a win in the gold medal hockey game, I was celebrating the end of this stairs project (of course I was celebrating the hockey win as well).

Our stairs were quite noisy, so we tried to reduce this noise by screwing the risers to the treads and screwing corner brackets to tighten the treads to the risers; this didn't seem to make much of a difference. I then applied construction adhesive to all of the seams (i.e. tread/riser, tread/stringer, riser/stringer); this reduced the noise on the stairs by about 80-90%, so I was happy with that result.

Then the sanding began! We put up plastic to try to reduce the amount of dust going into the rest of the house. I then sanded all of the old steps, posts, and railings using a palm sander and by hand, starting with 60 grit and 80 grit sandpaper. This took hours ... much harder than sanding a few bedrooms with a drum sander and edger.

Oak trim was then installed on the posts. We bought trim that was similar to the original trim from the posts. Also, beech bullnose pieces were installed on the edge of the landings. Everything (old and new) was then sanded with 120 grit sandpaper to prepare for staining.

The treads, risers, posts and railings were then stained using a custom stain that we ordered to match our hardwood floors. We had originally planned to paint the risers white, but after working hard to create beautiful curved oak risers, we decided to go ahead and stain all of the risers as well.

Once that was dry, three coats of oil-based polyurethane were applied. I will take some photos of the "finished product" in the daylight and post them this weekend. We still need to install hardwood flooring on the landings, install the baseboards, paint the stringers/spindles/baseboards white, re-paint the wall, and have a runner installed. The hard work is done though.