Progress, of a Sort

I've been working the past couple of days on stripping the casing and sill of the portal between the stairhall and the living room. Not steadily: the laundry and life have to be attended to some time.

The sill is interesting, since it evidently is a piece cut down and reused from somewhere else: Finished under the paint on both sides and one end but innocent of stain or natural finish on the long edges and the other end; with an unfinished breadth that shows where it once received some 2x member. No conception what it could have been; maybe someday I'll ask my PO-1.

But it left me the problem, how to even things out. Aha, guess this is a job for the belt sander my mom and stepdad bought me for my birthday over a year ago, a tool I used for the first time only a few days ago.

Well, the belt sander took care of that one area. And evened out some bad scratches. But now I have to figure out how to get rid of the ditches my novice sander-handling technique has left in the wood . . . and I don't think calling the piece "interestingly distressed" will satisfy. I'll deal with it tomorrow, when I'm less tired.

This past week, I did work in a few more hallway trim pieces stripped, so I'm up to 119, a little over 35%. I won't count the four I was working on this evening until they're totally done. Which-- see paragraph above-- ain't happening tonight.