I have a 14 year old Wayne Dalton wood door (I think it’s hemlock) and the previous stain / poly on it was starting to flake off so I need to figure out what’s the best thing to put on this door. I want the grain to show thru (as it always has) and I don't mind adding a slight bit of color. I originally went with a Ben Moore semi-transparent stain, and it looked like the door had been painted (the color and transparency was so different than the color book, the paint store guy even said "that's not right"), so I had them sand that off to start from scratch. I wanted to put a poly over whatever stain I chose (for longevity), but Cabot and Flood have said they don’t recommend poly over their stains. Anyone have any recommendations of products that will give me at least 5 good years?

I have a small section (probably 6 sq ft) of repair that I did in my bathroom. It is a combination of drywall and vinyl bullnose corners. The entire surface of the new drywall is covered in several layers of mud. The remaining wall that it connects with still has the "aqua born ceramic" flat color paint on it. I'm going to paint over the whole thing but I just want to make sure that when I do it all looks consistent. I've read so many conflicting thoughts on how to prep new drywall. Some say to prime, some say to just paint. Then even within the "prime it" group there are tons of different thoughts on what to use - a SW product, Gardz, etc. So how should I prep the new section, and do I also need to apply this same prep to the already painted section? Any advice would be greatly appreciated! Thanks, Jeff