Honestly, seeing a friend just wear it out to a regular barbeque did the trick for me. He had on a nice flannel with dark jeans and clean boots, looked totally normal. It kind of broke that mental link to just being for chopping wood. After that, I tried a thinner one over a t-shirt and it just clicked.

My uncle's a cabinetmaker in Spokane and he swears by skipping the conditioner entirely. He thins his first coat of oil-based stain with mineral spirits, about a 1:4 ratio, and applies it as a seal coat. After that dries, the full-strength stain goes on even. I tried it on a test piece of knotty pine and it worked way better than any pre-stain product I've bought.

Only twenty minutes? That's a new record for breaking down.

That's brutal but you dodged a bullet. Foundation issues are a nightmare that never really end. Better to find out before you owned it.

My neighbor said the food bank just enables laziness, which is crazy.