Serving Glendale & Milwaukee’s North Shore Licensed & Insured (715) 892-8068
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Wood staining, trim and fixtures.

Millwork, built-ins, mantels, handrails and furniture — stained or painted, with a clear topcoat built up in thin sprayed passes.

This is the work that sits closest to the “finish” half of our name, and it is the least like ordinary painting. Wood finishing is about reading the material — how a species takes stain, where it will blotch, how much the grain will raise on the first coat — and then building the finish in controlled layers rather than covering it in one.

We take on interior millwork and trim packages, built-in bookcases and cabinetry, fireplace mantels, stair handrails and balustrades, window seats, and individual pieces of furniture. Some of it is refinishing tired existing woodwork; some of it is finishing new millwork before or after installation.

Older homes across the North Shore are full of original oak and fir trim that has been painted over at some point, and stripping it back to bare timber to be stained again is a genuinely satisfying transformation. It is also slow, and we will be honest with you about the hours involved before you commit.

Our process

Built up in layers, not laid on in one.

Whether the finish is a clear coat over stain or a solid painted finish, the method is the same: thin coats, sanded between, sprayed rather than brushed wherever the piece allows.

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  1. Assess the timber

    Species, age, existing finish and condition all change the approach. Pine, maple and birch are prone to blotching and want a conditioner first. Oak has open grain that shows through unless it is filled. Getting this wrong is not correctable later.

  2. Strip or sand back

    Existing finish is removed to bare timber where the piece is being stained, because stain colours the wood itself and cannot work through an old coating. For a painted finish, sanding to a sound key is usually enough.

  3. Sample on your actual wood

    Stain colour on a chart is close to meaningless — the same stain reads completely differently on oak, pine and maple. We prepare samples on offcuts of your own timber and you choose from those.

  4. Condition, stain, seal

    Conditioner where the species needs it, stain applied and wiped back to an even depth, then a sealer coat to lock it in before any build coats go on.

  5. Spray the build coats

    Clear coats are sprayed in thin passes with a light sand between them. This is what produces depth and a surface that feels smooth rather than merely looking it. The number of coats depends on the piece and how it will be used.

  6. Cure properly

    Clear finishes need real cure time before they take daily use. We tell you when a surface can be touched, when it can be loaded, and when it is fully hardened — three separate dates.

Stain or paint

Choosing between stain and a painted finish.

It is the first decision and it is largely irreversible in one direction: painting over stained timber is easy, and getting back to stained timber after paint is a strip-and-refinish job measured in days.

Stain keeps the grain visible and is the right answer when the timber is worth showing — quarter-sawn oak, a solid mantel, a handrail with figure in it. It is less forgiving: stain highlights repairs, filler and sanding scratches rather than hiding them.

A painted finish gives a uniform colour, hides mismatched or repaired timber, and suits mixed-species trim packages where staining would produce four different tones in the same room. Sprayed properly, a painted trim finish is crisp and completely free of brush texture.

If you have original woodwork under paint and you are wondering what is underneath, we can test a small inconspicuous area and show you before you commit to stripping the lot.

What’s included

  • Species and condition assessed first
  • Stripping or sanding back as required
  • Stain samples prepared on your own timber
  • Grain filling and conditioning where needed
  • Sprayed clear or solid finish coats
  • Light sanding between every build coat
  • Furniture and small pieces finished at our shop
  • Clear guidance on cure times before use
  • Licensed & insured in Wisconsin
  • 1-year written warranty on all work
  • Free written estimates
  • Locally owned in Glendale
Questions

Common questions

Can you strip painted trim back to bare wood?

Yes, and it is one of the more transformative things you can do to an older home. It is also labour-intensive, so we will give you a realistic picture of the hours before you commit. Testing a small area first tells us what species is under there and what condition it is in.

Do you refinish furniture?

Yes. Individual pieces come to our Glendale shop where they can be finished flat, in controlled conditions, without dust. Tables, dressers, chairs, doors and built-in components are all normal work for us.

Can you match existing trim in another room?

We can get close, and often very close, by preparing samples against the existing woodwork. A perfect match to timber that has aged and ambered for decades is genuinely difficult to promise, and we would rather show you a sample against the original than make a claim.

How durable is a sprayed clear finish?

Very, once fully cured, and considerably more so than a wiped-on oil for surfaces that get handled. Handrails, mantels and tabletops all benefit from a sprayed build. The trade-off is cure time before heavy use.

Will staining hide the damage on my furniture?

No — stain does the opposite. It soaks into repairs and filler differently from the surrounding timber, so damage tends to become more visible rather than less. If a piece has significant damage, a solid painted finish is usually the better outcome and we will say so.

More services

Other work we take on

Got a piece worth finishing properly?

Trim, a built-in, a mantel or a single piece of furniture — send a photo and tell us what you are hoping for.

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