Well, I didn't post yesterday because I was just too worn out to think about much of anything. Monday was the first coat on the 1,500-square-foot ash job; it went well-got to like that. The only mix-up for the day was I forgot we were out of finish ... my bad. As I've mentioned before, we live in the boonies, so that is a problem. I called Paul to order finish, and thank God, they were going to Jackson today, so I drove the hour to meet them there so I could get finish and put on the last coat.
Joey is on a long weekend in Florida for his one-year anniversary, so I had to pad and coat myself. The hard part with coating alone is making sure you do not miss anything. Turns out he homeowner was my wing man. How nice was that? He asked where Joey was and I told him, so he said, "Do you need help?" "Well, yes, I do. Here is a respirator-you make sure I do not miss anything." He was great and he fully understood the need for the mask (we were using poly). He took it off once to talk-once. The man had tears before we were done; not sure if he was sad because he had to pay me or if the finish was bugging him. I think it was the finish; he likes the floor, so he will pay.
I cannot get folks to buy into water-based finish, so I do what I am asked to do. They just believe that oil is better, and the price is the trouble, too. Of course I ask for more money with water-based finish, about $90/gallon versus about $33/gallon-you do the math. Yes, I am told you can put two coats on in a day and save money on that trip, but I manage to get two coats of oil on in a day, too. We buff in the seal coat like stain and it will be dry in one hour or less. So we can put down the next coat and save time and give the look folks like around here.
We are starting on a set of stairs for the rest of the week and they are so messed up I may take them apart, fix them and then sand and finish them. Not the best built set of stairs I have seen, but we can fix them ... just add the extra labor to the job. We get $50/step to resand and $35 for new stairs. They are easy to take care of, so I feel like the price is fair for what we do to them. We do more than our share of hand-sanding. I do not like to palm-sand them too much because you can see the pig tails from the sander once you stain them. So our last two grits is all hand rubbed so all the scratches go with the grain 100%.
