Almost finished...maybe? Trim (choosing & staining, etc.).

"To finish a work?...What nonsense!  To finish it means to be through with it, to kill it, to rid it of its soul, to give it its final blow the coup de grace for the painter as well as the picture."

~Pablo Picasso

An interesting piece of information for you:  they make birch paneling...but not birch trim.  So, this creates a bit of a challenge when you are ready to trim the area where you installed birch panel.  Thus began my search for trim.

Being new to wood and its properties, this was quite a learning experience for me.  I like to claim that I am a carpenter now (though I realize I am VERY far from it).  I do enjoy understanding a little about the grain of different woods, how they take stain and polyurethane differently, etc.  Who knew that woods were so varied and dramatically different from each other?!

So, I started my trim experiment with some pine.  In my ignorance, I thought: "it's light-colored, the grain is minimal...if I polyurethane it, it may turn the same golden color as the birch walls":

 The pine is clearly too light.

Next, I tried oak:

I didn't like this at all!  Way too grainy.

So, when it's difficult to match something, go for a contrasting color, right?  I wondered what it would look like if my trim followed the same theme as the ceiling - birch with mahogany:

This isn't horrible...kind of nice, actually.  But I was worried about how it would look if every corner and seam was mahogany.  I thought it would be too busy.

I wondered how poplar would look.  It's light.  Maybe it would deepen in color with polyurethane:

 Still, too light.  And, though you can't tell in this pic, it was also too green (in color).  Poplar has green tones (see, I told you I was a carpenter now).

I decided to go to Home Depot and ask for help.  I visited the Home Depot in Pleasant Ridge.  Lauren Byrd works in the paint department and she offered to help.  I explained what I was looking for, and she showed me a piece of wood that had sections stained in many different shades.  If you need some help with stains and matching colors, grab a sample and visit Lauren at Home Depot (tell her I said hi)!

I was very surprised to find that cherry was the closest shade.  When I think of cherry, I picture tones of red or maroon.  So, (being one of little faith), I bought the smallest container available to test it:

A great match!  I was very relieved to find something that would work--pine trim with Minwax cherry stain:

Now to stain and polyurethane trim for the boat!  Gregg Tepe helped me measure all of the inside and outside corners of the walls (where I would use pine with cherry stain), and the ceiling (where I would use mahogany to match he coffers on the salon ceiling).

Buying trim is a time-consuming task.  I had to inspect each piece to determine if was straight, free of nicks, the color I wanted, etc.  It took hours.

Once I purchased it, I had to get it home.  I tried to keep the pieces as long as I could (forgetting about getting them into my Jeep Wrangler).  Well, if they won't fit inside, carry them on the outside (this was Gregg's idea, and it saved the day):

I imagined this would be a tedious job--staining and polyurethaning (is that a verb?) lots of pieces of trim.  But actually, I loved it!  I took a day off work and set up my work area on the boat.  It was a dreary, rainy day.  But, spending the day in the warmth of my boat with music playing and rain dancing on the metal rooftop while I sanded and brushed and wiped each piece of trim--watching it magically change to a golden hue--was very relaxing and satisfying.

One handy tip: Mirka scuff pads make it easy to hold and get every detailed cut of the trim when sanding:

And the polyurethane:

The trim for the ceiling in the back of the boat was easier.  Since the coffers in the salon were made of poplar wood with mahogany stain, I just had to choose a trim made of poplar and use the same stain.

I chose this trim (found it at Hyde Park Lumber):

Once again, I set up my work station on the boat and thoroughly enjoyed the task:

Staining...

And finished (in the middle of the night):

Oh!  Remember that I mentioned the green color of poplar?  Look at this:

And, this is how birch changes with just polyurethane:

The section on the left has one coat of polyurethane, and the one on the right has none.

I had lots of things to polyurethane, so I was so thankful my friends, Gregg Tepe and Mary Hodge, came to help:

Well, they did occasionally fill my wine glass...

Tomorrow Glenn will install the trim.  I can't wait to see what a difference it will make--the "finishing touch."  OK, I don't think this project will ever be finished, and I'm ok with that.  I'm more than ok with that.  I hope it is always a project...always progressing and changing...always a passion.  I hope to never be through with it.