What beautiful views you have outside your windows! We're also working on our forever house in Santa Fe and our windows look a lot like yours... About the poly'd windows. I faced the same problem a couple of weeks ago as a fellow helping us poly'ed a french door while we were away that only had 1 coat of stain on it, instead of 2. Did not look good. Here's what I did, that worked perfectly. I scuff sanded the poly pretty energetically with a maroon Scotch-Brite pad (which is equivalent to 320 grit sandpaper). The pads IMHO work much better on stain and poly than regular sandpaper or steel wool, giving a significant more even scuff or smoothing. And you can reuse them by washing and drying them, although they get thinner with use. I bought a box of 6" discs online. The scuffing was to give the poly "teeth" so that it would hold another coat of stain. I then painted on the second stain coat. I use Zar Salem Maple, a rich brown-y color with orangey highlights. The thing about the Zar is that it is *thick* and highly pigmented, and can be used as a top-lying glaze as well as a regular penetrating stain. Over poly, you want a stain that will do the glaze thing, as nothing more will penetrate the wood. You could also try a gel stain. MinWax gels are easy to get, but depending on how urgent your work is I suggest also going on line to the Lawrence-McFadden company. They have the most beautiful gel stains, in fact stain colors period, that I've ever seen. I'm using the Candleight color, which is very close to the Zar Salem Maple, but gives more pigment per coat. One coat of Candelight equals 2 coats of Zar, in my experience and less time spent is a good thing! Depending on the weather when I've used the Zar as a glaze I've also added some japan drier (according to the can instructions) as a top-sitting coat of this thicker oil stain can take up to 2 to 3 days to dry otherwise. I don't need to do this in the winter with the house heat on. You might experiment. After it's dry, I buff again very lightly with the maroon or even finer grey Scotch-brite, and poly. A final very light and quick buff to remove any dust nibs, etc, and that's it. You'd never know that it wasn't done all at once. If you're changing stain color, remember that it's like hair color--the existing color will affect the final result as stains are fundamentally transparent, unlike paints. For poly on doors and windows I've started using a waterborne floor poly, Mega from Bona. It's very low sheen satin-y, and one coat does it for me. It dries in 10 minutes.

Katie

Katie,
You are a darling! Thank you for taking the time to give me such detailed information :-) I will check out the Lawrence McFadden Co. I'm all for getting a product that saves time!
Good luck with your home build and thanks for the comments on the view, we are truly blessed.

Lisette