Painful Progress

I have some degree of victory. The second shortest flight of the four has been prepped, taped and gotten coat one of varnish. It's been quite a learning process that I am sure is not over and my blistered, cut and abused fingers bear testimony.

I learned that if staples won't pull out, yanking on them until your fingers are blistered is not smart. Also, take off your jewelry, as that only makes blisters worse.

There are pliers that can cut off the sharp bits very close to the woood, however, finding the sharp bits by running your hand over the tread is a good way to get cut.

Once the staples have been trimmed down as far as you can, a countersink is your best friend. So is wood filler that is color coordinated to the type of wood.

Blue tape is good stuff. So are kneepads. So are tack cloths.

Ms. Packratty is estimating that she can get about half the prep work done on the next section of stairs tomorrow after her early appointment and before reporting for work at 3 p.m. That would be removing the tread covers, pulling all the staples possible, countersinking the ones she can't pull and putting woood putty in the resulting holes. She also hopes to do the light sand, tack cloth wipe and a second coat of varnish on section one before she goes to work

The worst part of the prep, the taping, she hopes to start tomorrow evening, after work and after exercising dogs. If Ms. P can spend so much as 45 minutes at it, she will be in far better trim on Friday morning, when her worktime is neatly bisected by a dental appointment.

Friday morning would be her chance to repeat the revarnish for coat 3 on the first section. If section two is taped and wiped down, a first coat could go on that Friday afternoon and a second on Saturday morning and the third Saturday evening.

Section 3, the longest run of stairs, would be the Saturday and Sunday project In between the varnishing on section 2. The plan would be to pull the covers and prep and start taping, with the hopes of getting 2 coats on the stairs Sunday. Since Ms. P won't be back home until Monday evening, two coats should be sufficient to make it through the week with a third coat applied on Saturday and the final 4 step section for later. If need be, the bottom section could be done in alternate steps so it could be used even though it was being worked on. Ms. P simply hopes she does not wake up tomorrow feeling as though she has been thrashed and pummelled.

Now, the pictures:

Before - tread covers off, no other work:

Taped and prepped:

And finally - first coat on - isn't that oak PRETTY?