Stained Crown Molding problem

Might be a better question for rec.woodworking. They are supposed to stain it first, then use filler that's colored to match the stain. nailing it then filling and then staining is going to get the same results that you already got since the filler usually takes the stain differently then the wood anyway.

Most probably they used wax sticks to fill the holes. That is normal. The fact that you notice the filled areas only when you view it obliquely indicates the same thing as what you are seeing is a slight depression. Staining again would do no good - wax doesn't stain.

Pretty hard to fill a nail hole with wax so it is flush...the wax crayon is rubbed over the hole and excess on surrounding area is wiped off. The wiping off drags some wax from hole leaving a slight depression.

They *could* have used something other than wax and then stained again but it is very unlikely that the stained filler would match the stained wood.

In a month you'll never notice it.

With stain, things are supposed to show thru such as wood grain and nail spots. With paint, they are not.

"Too picky" depends on just how badly it mismatches -- could be and could be they just didn't do a very good job.

It's a time-consuming job to do well and most don't want to take the time.

If done well, they can get a near perfect match and minimize the gloss difference as well.

If what you're seeing are actual "dimples" and not coloring differences, I think they should go back and refill and do a better job of establishing the profile, definitely. If it's a color problem as well, then it depends in part on what they used. If just an "off-the-shelf" wax pencil, you'll probably have a hard time convincing them to do "more-better" as that is indicative that they're not the level of craftsman that may have much more than that in their repertoire...

The good news (if any) in the story is that if you really want to, you can fix this yourself at your leisure other than the access...

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Are you seeing a difference in color or in gloss? Two adjoining surfaces would be likely to take stain differently, sad to say. What might be a simple fix would be to get some cheap acryllic paint at craft store, mix your own color to hide the nail holes....takes a little messing around, but easier than redoing the whole thing. Or just buy a darker crayon for patching holes and dab it on.

I think it is normal procedure to stain prior to installing so's you don't get stain on walls and ceiling.