A Touchup for Knotty Pine

More than a simple cleaning, this process removes grime and a tired finish while preserving the mellow quality of vintage knotty pine.

- Mary Ellen Polson

ABOVE Sanding the old cabinet doors, then rubbing on two coats of stain, worked wonders on the author's knotty-pine cabinets. New bronze hardware accents the rich color of the 60-yearold wood. INSET, BEFORE Installed in the late 1960s, the cabinets were faded and dirty.

The kitchen cabinets in my 1913 Adirondack-style cottage are an eclectic mix of builder-grade Homecrest cabinets in an odd tone of brown-burgundy, a couple of hand-built cabinets in oak and poplar and extensive knotty-pine storage cubbies (along with an enormous soffit), crafted by a local carpenter in the late 1960s.

The knotty pine was definitely showing its age. Using a tag-team approach with my handyman, sculptor Robert George, together we refreshed the vintage wood cabinets. He sanded, I stained.

THE CABINET DOORS

My knotty-pine cabinet doors are constructed from pine planks on the back, with mitered frames and a cross-X design on the front. Robert removed the hinge pins, leaving the hinges in place, GEL STAIN and took the doors outside for sanding. In retrospect, one of us should have marked the positions of each door on the back, as they were hand-built to fit exact spaces in an old, sagging house.

Robert sanded away all the surface finish he could reach using successive papers (150 and 220 grit), the hardest part of the job.

Once satisfied with the sanded surfaces, he used screwdrivers and a small awl to chip and pick away stray bits of old glue and paint before handing off a door for staining.

LEFT (from top) A sanded door is ready for dust removal.