Window Trim

Front of house. Window trim installed and stained.

The last thing we worked on in the summer was the window trim. I wanted to use clear wood (no knots) to border the windows – and Douglas Fir was the wood of choice. The problem: cost! It is next to impossible to get ‘clear green d-fir’. It is either construction grade Fir, or kiln-dried.

I suspect that most builders who want a natural wood finish use the kiln-dried lumber. But this was really a non-starter for us. It would have cost a small fortune.

So I went out looking for alternatives. It turns out that the lumber yards do sell a lot of ‘clear green cedar’. Note that the species is ‘Western Red Cedar’ – ‘clear’ means that it has no knots and green means that it has not been kiln dried. People use this stuff for decks and backyard projects. It is expensive – but not nearly the cost of kiln dried clear Douglas Fir (eg: one 8′ 2×6 Clear Green Cedar plank is approximately $25; the same board in kiln dried Fir is between $50 and $100 – depending on where you get it; the standard window trim (primed, combed face spruce) that the builder of spec houses use would cost about $12 per board). And I need a lot of this stuff. Like 800 linear feet or more for the entire house.

The first window is trimmed.

Anyway, I decided to go the ‘clear green cedar’ route, as  it will give a nice natural wood look. More costly than painted trim (double) … but it should look nice.

Next challenge: getting the wood.

I went around to all the lumber yards trying (a) to get a good price, and (b) to get nice product. Turns out that everyone has basically the same pricing – but there was a huge difference in quality. For example, some say ‘clear’ – but their wood is full of knots. There is also a very different look depending on how the board is milled. Some of them show the flat grain on the face – and other show the edge grain. I much prefer edge grain. So what I ended up doing was to go to a lumber yard and hand picking all the nice straight, clear, edge grain boards – and taking them home. I could get maybe 15 to 20 boards from one supplier. Then I had to wait a week so for people to buy the other <less desirable imho> boards, so they would re-stock. Then I go back and take all the nice boards again. I have to look through every bundle of boards and hand pick the good ones. Takes some time … but I am getting pretty goof at it now … I can look at the end grain and color/hue of the board and I can tell pretty accurately which ones will look nice (of course they are typically at the bottom of the pile) – then I re-stack the entire pile to get the boards I want.

Bottom Floor Trim Complete

Hmmm. I wonder why this job is taking so long!

Next Decision: Stain

I want to pre-finish the trim, and I had decided to use Broda SLT for the boards. Previous color experiments on the deck helped me zero in on color 112 (Woodlands). After a few trials I decided that two coats SLT + 1 coat of their clear topcoat was the preferred way to go … gave the right color depth and not too much sheen.

Milling the Window Trim

There are three basic profiles that I need to cut (table saw is used for all this).

1. straight flat boards (for vertical trim)
2. sills (ledge under the windows)
3. horizontal trim (above windows and under sills
   

   In this photo you can see the three different profiles that need to be cut.

Also, the boards all have planner marks from the saw mill. It is easier to re-plane them to get rid of the marks than to sand them out. Of course I still have to sand them a bit – as any planer leaves ‘mill glaze’ – which prevents stain from penetrating.

So my process is something like this:

• plane boards to get rid of planer marks from saw mill
• cut planks to correct profile on table saw
• sand to remove mill glaze
• apply 2 coats stain
• install (cut to length, level/align, nail in place)

I started on this two or three weeks before we were to leave for summer vacation – with a goal of completing the trim for the entire house. Everything went fine for a few days – until I washed off a part of the front wall in preparation for installing some trim. At that time I noticed that the stain on some of the previously installed boards had ‘run’. It was like the stain did not dry properly and was washing off!

Arghh!

Close up of trim around upper floor windows.

Stop the presses – press reset – hit the panic button … (whatever you do!). I have maybe a quarter of the front installed and another batch stained and ready to go on … but I can;t really go forward with this if the stain is defective!

I grab a board, jump in the truck, and head in to see the paint supplier. End up talking with the president of their company. They do a bunch of tests and decide that the problem has to do with the acidity of the Red Cedar. Apparently it affects the chemical reaction that is needed for the stain to cure. Note that this is not a typical oil based stain or a film building varnish type product. It is water based and is supposed to soak into the wood, then the water evaporates and there is a chemical reaction that makes the stain bond with the cells in the wood. One benefit of this product is that you can put it on when the wood is wet (aka – green). This is one of the main reasons I chose the product – my wood is ‘green’ – and I can’t wait for it to dry before staining it because it rains too much out here – and the tannins in the cedar leave ugly marks on the surface of untreated wood when it gets wet.

Yes, lots of sample colors and stain types were tested.

Anyway – the Broda stuff isn’t working. They suggested two things … (a) take the wood outside <I was preparing it inside> to dry after staining, as the UV helps the reaction, and (b) pre-treat the wood with a strong ‘basic’ <as in the opposite of ‘acidic’> solution. The dude gave me a tub of potash, and instructions on how not to get chemical burns.

Of course the problem is not really so simple. I am sitting there looking at maybe $500 of wood that needs to be re-stained. I try and variety of things, but in the end I just stuff it all through my planer again, and re-sand, and re-stain.

It dries this time – thank god!

Total delay – probably 1 week.

In the end I only get the trim completed on the front of the house before vacation.