Match Made in Sherwin-Williams

Renovating the guest room is starting to get exhausting. After working on it all day last Saturday, Thursday and today, I am ready for a week of sitting at a desk.  I told my FIL we should go into construction business and call it Collins and Collins  But I've since changed my mind.

But we have managed to go from this:

To this:

To this!

Progress

It's a little dusty right now, in spite of my FIL's best efforts with a broom and shop vac.

Between the heavy lifting (i.e my FIL's availability) I've been working to stain all the unfinished pine trim.

The former DIYer owners had pulled down some of the crown moldings in the house.  I couldn't figure out why, until I found it in the banister of the loft railing.  NOT the correct way to upcycle.

So I pulled out all the moldings in the guest room and set them aside to fill in the missing spaces in the dining room.  I plan to stain all new molding as close as possible but not put any old next to new. 

In order to have stain matched, Sherwin-Williams needs a sample of the wood that will be stained.  I went to Home Depot and bought a 4x1 pine board.  Then I dropped it off at SW with a sample of the existing trim.  The next day, they called and told me my stain was matched!

The board showed all the different stains they'd tested to get a match.

To achieve the same look as my existing trim and moldings, I needed to buy wood conditioner and gloss in addition to the stain.

I can't believe how much more finished things look with the wood stain.  I'm slowly getting the hang of applying it.  Although, I did discover wood stain on my ear yesterday just before going out with friends for Valentine's Day.  Thankfully the restaurant walls were wood-paneled, so it was easy to camouflage.

See Henry in that picture up there?  He's been alternating between hiding under the table and trying to slip into the room behind us.  It's harder to know who will be more relieved when we're finished with this room!

Oh, and see that work around the door?  Yeah, we didn't do that.  It looked like that when we moved in.  Just one of the reasons I cried in this room during the walk-through.

Part of this door jamb was the original color (possibly former crown molding??) and part of it I stained to match.  Pretty good match, right?

Now that I've started staining, we're questioning what to do with all the wood in our house.  I had originally thought we could have the dark and light pine together.  Now I'm thinking we need to stain it all.  I just wonder if that stain is too dark for all the wall and if we should match the trim to the light pine.

I hate to replace all the wood trim, doors and the stairs, but I do want it to look finished.

To stain or not to stain?

Thoughts??