Would you rather...

Work with someone you HATE?

OR

Work with someone who annoys the hell out of you?

Crying? No, uhmmm, that's just sand in my eye. Literally.

So the bar project has reached an unfortunate stall. I was joyfully approaching what I thought was my last few tasks to finish her up.... when I get hit with an unexpected surprise. You see, after the staining I had applied a few coats of polyurethane to seal the bar and give it a nice shiny appearance. After a coat or two or urethane, one is supposed to give the piece a light sanding with some fine sandpaper (220 grit). As I started this, stain and urethane can COMPLETELY off some of the wood and left it bare as the day it was ermmm, born? Planed? Whatever.

As you can imagine, this left me a little frustrated and upset. I called my brother, a fellow household putzer arounder, and he was completely bamboozled as well. I emailed him some pictures, and he was speechless. Neither of us can figure out how or why this happened.

So where does this leave me? I am going to have to give the bar a through sand down with a coarse grit sandpaper (100 or 120 grit) to get as much stain and urethane off as possible. I will probably do this a few times. Then I will have to sand it down with the fine sandpaper again. Then re-stain with a few coats. Then more polyurethane. SIGH.

So as not to rush through and do a half-ass job, I am taking a bar sabbatical. A few days to collect my thoughts and rid myself of the frustration. Then I'll get back on task.

Bar Update

Here she is with some stain on her. In this picture, the stain is still wet and has not been wiped off yet. Oh, and look at coasters my wife got me for my birthday: http://simply-sublime.com/bar_coaster-barkeep.jpg (mine are personalized to me, of course).

Getting closer....

I MADE IT!

Phew. Another 364.