More sanding

I spent half an hour sanding the windows, bringing the total hours on the windows to date to 209.5. People often ask me why I didn't, or don't, just paint them. There are two reasons. First is that I want the wood to show. Part of my design for the house is lots of wood. All the interior and exterior doors are finished wood as well as the interior window frames and trim. Second is that I didn't know just how many hundreds of hours the shellac would take. Had I known, I might of just painted. I could have ordered the windows with the interior pre-primed, which would have meant just 1-2 coats of paint. But now that I am so far in, it only makes sense to continue. I do really love the shellac. It's different than polyurethane, which leaves a thick coat of plastic on top of the wood. It gets into the wood grain and leaves a subtle shimmer which changes in different light. It also is heavenly to touch. You feel smooth wood, not plastic.

I have one more window in the living room to sand, and then that window can be buffed and the trim installed. The trim will need coats, with sanding in between each coat and a final buffing. After the trim, that window will be ready for a shade! This is big news! Almost years in this house and we still have newspaper and plastic over the windows. Nice. Getting window shades will be huge. I spent an hour looking at window shades and hope to order by the end of the week so that as soon as the trim is done I can install it.

I've stopped and started so many times on the windows that they are all in various states of completion. Two of twelve are totally done, this one is almost done, some are not started. I want to buy the shades one at a time at first because they are expensive and if I make a mistake I don't want it on all the shades. Once I get the first shade ordered, I can order another right away for one of the other finished windows. One finished window is in the bathroom and won't get a shade because it's frosted. The other window that is done is ready for a shade, but I don't want to order it yet because it is a big window, which means the shade will be expensive. I want to order a smaller one first so if I make a mistake it will be less costly.