The original wood graining in the hall, stairs and landing has been professionally applied. However, it has been painted on top of several layers of brittle paint and many chips are appearing. The solution is to strip the woodwork and reapply wood graining to all the doors and facings. So far I have completed the 6 doors in the landing.

This is the bathroom door before and after stripping. The doors and woodwork are stripped using a heat gun, nitromors and wirewool. This takes a long time.	For the basecoat we use a salmon pink. The next coat is a glaze made up of 50% Craig and Rose oil based scumble glaze, 50% white spirit, a dash of white undercoat and artists oil paint are used for pigment (2 burnt umber to 1 burnt sienna).	I have grained in small sections covering all doors and facings. This avoids painting a whole door using a single mix and graining style. Although I did some practice pieces, I realise that each glaze mix is different and my technique improves and evolves over time. I used a 2" motler to paint the grain into the glaze. I used a badger brush to soften the grain.	Here the middle panel has the second glaze applied. This is again a 50:50 glaze but the pigment is 3 burnt umber to 1 crimson. No undercoat is added so the glaze is transparent. The motler, softner and finally a flogger are used to add the grain. I found it best to leave the glaze to become tacky (20-30 mins) before flogging in the fine grain.
This is the graining patchwork process underway. This is much more enjoyable than stripping the paint.	After the second glaze a coat of varnish is applied. I tinted this slightly with burnt umber since I thought the wood needed darkening. The final preparation was to used very fine wire wool and wax.	This is the detail on one of the doors. The door handles and escutcheons were restored to their former glory.	Tools of the trade (clockwise): mixing pot, white spirit, scumble glaze, white oil paint, wirewool, oil colours, flogger brush, measuring spoons, graining brush, badger softening brush.