Polyurethane and Paint, what a lovely smell.

This morning I put down the second coat of polyurethane in the upstairs bedroom and the first coat on the downstairs floors.  I did have to stop and make a quick run to Lowes for a third can because I just did not have enough to make it through the living room.  While I did pick up more yesterday at Andersons, it was a slightly different type of Minwax and I wanted to make sure that it all went down the same way.  So the first coat is Minwax's High durability gloss, the second is Minwax's fast dying gloss and the last coat will be Minwax fast drying satin finish.  I am following the the formula given on an Ask This Old House episode which has been converted to a clip on the website.  It was only recently that I found out why it is two layers of gloss and then one layer of satin.  The gloss is more durable than the satin, so it builds a good base.  The satin then cuts the sheen to something most people prefer to look at.

The next thing that I did was wash down the basement stairs a second time with TSP.  Even though my sister had done it once before I still got an entire bucket of gunk off of them.  While that was drying I changed the light fixtures outside the back door.  They are a major improvement on the existing open look lights that came with the house.  The best part is that they are motion activated, so we now will have a veritable sun light up in the back if someone should be back there after dark.

The last thing I did was prime the basement stairway.  It went from a nasty smoker stained yellow to a decent white.  It will probably need some more in some places the next time I am out there, but it is still a million times better than it was before.