This picture is actually from back on January 22. We had some unseasonably warm weather, and it was easy to take this project outdoors to avoid having solvent fumes in the garage and basement.
I used Minwax wood finish, Golden Oak color. Minwax is easy to use. It goes on with a rag, not a brush, so there are no brush marks to worry about. Suicidal gnats don’t get themselves stuck in it as happens if you try to dry varnish outdoors. It rubs down to a nice soft luster. Golden Oak is a color that comes out close to antique oak furniture, nice and warm, and always feels to me like what the wood (if it was oak, that is) wanted to be.
That’s the can of finish and applicator rag on the bottom left, just outside the garage door.
The stepstool has a piano hinge joining the two top steps. It unfolds to an A shape, with a nice wide step at the top and narrow steps on either side halfway up. The narrow V at the top closes and keeps the A from spreading too far apart, and the broad V at the bottom flattens out as the sides meet the floor. This is the design I cribbed from a stepstool I saw at a store in Newton Centre that was closing back in November.