A friend of mine tried to update her honey-oak cabinets with a dark espresso gel stain. No bueno. I have never worked with gel stain before but from what I’ve researched it seems like a fickle medium. Anyway, I’m not sure if it was the way my friends applied the stain or if it was the type of finish that was on the oak cabinets before but the stain went on blotchy and, once dry, immediately began chipping off with the slightest touch. They were in a pickle so they called me up to get my opinion on the matter. I went over and took a look at the cabinets and got a handle on what had been done. We then came up with a plan of action to get their kitchen looking lively and updated again. Then they got to work stripping and sanding the cabinets back to bare wood. BIG JOB but worth it. If you are reading this post with your own cabinets in mind I should tell you that stripping and sanding back cabinets to bare wood ISN’T ALWAYS necessary if you’re planning on painting them and/or refinishing them. In the case of my friends, we had to strip the gel stain away because you never want to paint on top of a coat that was never correctly bonded to the original cabinets surface. So basically, and I’m not an expert so you might need a second opinion depending on the state of your cabinets, if you have chipping finish (stain, laquer, paint, etc.) stripping and sanding are usually necessary before refinishing. If your cabinets are in good condition (no chipping finish, bubbles, drips, etc.) a light sanding with medium grit sandpaper (just to give the existing finish some tooth for the new stain/primer to hold on to) should do the trick just fine. On my cabinets (we had standard builder grade oak cabinets when we first moved in that I wanted to “jazz up”) I simply went over them lightly with sandpaper and then antiqued and stained them with a stain 1 shade darker than the original finish. Heres the before and after (sorry the pics aren’t great).
If you are going to stain over pre-stained and laquered cabinets without stripping them, you should only apply a new stain that is one or maybe two shades darker than the existing stain. Also, keep in mind that if you have any “fake wood” (mine have fake wood on the sides of that cabinet shelving) this will not “take” the stain like wood so if you go more than a shade or two darker you will have to most likely replace those areas with new “fake wood” to match the new stain. I stained over my fake wood with the same new stain I used on my cabinets and it blended in fine since I didn’t go much darker than the original color.
For my friend’s cabinets, we discussed staining the oak a darker medium brown color. They liked the look of natural wood antiqued cabinets. Their home has a french-country flair to it so we wanted to do something inkeeping with that feeling. Heres the issue we had with staining the now bare oak cabinets: Wood grain. Tons of it. Oak (especially oak that has been stripped and sanded bare) has tons of gorgeous, open, porous wood grain that soaks up stain like crazy. It is BEAUTIFUL no doubt, but in this situation would have made the cabinets far too rustic and busy looking alongside their beautiful speckled granite countertops. Now, I have heard of ways you can lessen the graininess of oak cabinets so that they take stain more uniformly. You can “seal” the grain before you stain with different things. I’ve never done it and I can’t vouch for it as a DIY’er. So with this realization we decided to paint the cabinets instead and antique them. I know. The purists out there are going to hate me for that. But to each his own. In this case, this was the best option to 1. Update their cabinets and spruce up their kitchen, 2. Make the cabinets POP with the granite counters and black/stainless appliances, 3. Create a nice flow with the style of the house and the homeowners decor. So what we decided on, after much deliberation, was to go ahead and paint the main cabinets an antiqued cream and the island antiqued black to make it POP. And I’m telling ya, its gonna be gorgeous. You may even forgive me for painting over wood. 😉
So how’d we do it? I brought home a couple of doors as a demo for you guys.
Cost: Varies depending on the size of your kitchen
Supplies:
- Primer: Ask a pro or get a recommendation from the sales associate depending on the state of your cabinets. There are tons of great primers out there. I used Behr primer for these.
- Paint: Interior latex paint in semigloss. The semigloss finish helps the stain go on smoothly and creates an easy-t0-clean surface for future wipe-downs.
- Sandpaper: Medium grit and fine grit.
- Stain with a polyurethane coating built in. This will eliminate the need for an additional laquer coat and seal the areas that have been sanded back. *TIP* Buy a stain that is darker than your paint color. For example, for an antiqued cream finish I bought white paint, and a medium brown stain. The stain gets into the corners for the antiquing and creates a soft variated wash over the entire cabinet turning the cabinet cream. Realize when you are buying your paint and stain that for this technique that the stain will darken and dull the paint color. So, buy a paint that is lighter and brighter than your intended result and a stain that compliments it. If you are nervous, just buy some sample paint colors and a stain and test out the technique on some scrap wood until you find the color combination that you like.
- Good paintbrushes. You want the cabinets to have as little paint strokes as possible so find a couple of great paintbrushes with fines, soft bristles. If you have decorative moulding, get a 1″ angled brush to get in all the corners and a 2″ flat brush for the flat surfaces.
- A sponge. They have different size sponges in the paint section of your local hardware store. I got a big one and cut it up as I needed.
- Disposable gloves.
- Blue heavy duty paper towels. Find them in the paint section as well. You will use these to wipe off the stain when you do the antiquing.
I just discovered your lovely blog. I’m just new into blogging this year & have just finished off my own daily blog on fashion, food, travel & interior design.
http://scrapbook-melissah.blogspot.com/
I had a lot of fun putting it together maybe you would like to check it out if you have a spare minute.
x
Melissah
i like Antique Kitchen Cabinets Brampton,It’s a great idea to change the color of my kitchen cabinets now. It helps me a lot. Thanks’ for sharing this post.
Hi there,
I love how your cabinets turned out and want to try the look in my kitchen. Do you mind sharing the brand and color of the paint and glaze you used? Are you supposed to antique the inside of the cabinet doors or leave those regular oak? Would you recommend white paint with a black glaze if I have black granite counter tops? Thank you!
Thanks for the kind comments! I used Behr paint and primer but I can’t remember the exact color. It was pretty white with just a touch of cream to it. Then I antiqued the cabinets with Minwax Polyshades in Satin color Mission Oak. I did paint and stain the insides of the cabinets as well. I think it makes it more “finished”. I would probably not do a white paint with a black glaze because it might turn out giving your cabinets an overall gray tone as well as making them a little “muddy” looking. I’d use a brown stain and then accent your cabinets with some dark metal handles to tie in the countertops. But, if you’re just not sure, get out some scrap wood and test out a few color combinations and how they look next to your counters. Sorry this has taken me so long to respond! THanks so much for checking out my blog! Good luck! 🙂
This is exactly what I want to do to our kitchen cabinets, but we want the cabinets to be black. Have you ever done this technique for a black finish? What color primer/paint/stain would you recommend? Our cabinets are currently a medium oak & in very good condition. Thanks for your help!!!
You CAN do this on dark cabinets, although true BLACK won’t show the detail of this antiquing technique much. Instead I would recommend getting a dark colored paint (like a dark brown) and just using an even DARKER shade of stain for the antiquing (like a black or espresso). I did this on the island in my friends kitchen (as seen in a couple of the pics here) and it turned out very nice and still was inkeeping with the style of antiquing done on the lighter cabinets. The trick is to get a darker stain color than your paint color. A stain color lighter than your paint color will just make them look muddy and gross. The darker stain color on the other hand will have the same antiquing look as the lighter cabinets, although possibly a little more subtle. My advice would be to do a few test boards up of different combinations of paint and stain to see what look you like. Also, put your test boards in the sunlight too if your kitchen has a lot of direct sun since the effect will look different from full sun to shade. Anyway! I really hope that helps! Thanks for your questions and come back for more tutorials soon! 🙂
i saw the black and the white painted type cabinets on many china hutch, credenzas, and cabinets when i was moving furniture. the best color for black is using a lighter stain like a cherry color. its the same as the white but with the opposite contrasting effect. if its white cabinets use dark stain, if its dark cabinets use a lighter stain, i think the cherry stood out the best and blended very well
So glad I found this today. I have been to a few home improvement stores and none of them could tell me what kind of stain to use. I was going to paint the cabinet a dark cocoa color in the hall bath then stain them, but I know the stain wouldn’t show. Or do you think a few shades of stain darker would? I have decided to use a sage type green instead if the brown is to dark. My question is do you think the stain will show up as well as it did on yours if I use the brown? I saw this technique on tv but they used some type of stain in a white bottle. AnywaysI am excited to know I can just use the regular cans of stain. 🙂
BTW very nice work 🙂
You CAN paint them dark brown (or any other darker paint color) but you’ll need to use a black stain (or dark stain) in order to give it that antiqued appearance that you’re looking for. I actually did this on the island in the “after” pics of the kitchen I just did. I used a dark brown paint and a black stain (Minwax Polyshades has one). It darkened the overall tone of the cabinets to a black/brown with color variation throughout (like on the light cabinets) and antiquing in the crevices. It turned out really nice and I would fully recommend it for dark cabinets. But use a DARKER STAIN than the color of the paint that you’re using. If you use a lighter stain it will just look muddy and won’t look antiqued at all. (I know from experience. Yuck!). So like a black or dark espresso/java bean colored stain should do what you’d like. If you’re still wary, just test it on a scrap board before hand. Hope that helps! Glad you liked my tutorial and good luck! 🙂
I’m not staining cabinets, but am staining a hard wood floor we found under our carpet, it had been painted a few times first a dark brown then a blue, and somewhere in there I think parts of it were white. We started sanding and really liked the look of the streaks of different paint colors, and the bare wood. So we thought maybe we could stain it a dark cherry color and still get the same rustic two/three tone affect with a darker color. Wasn’t sure if this will even work, and didn’t know but maybe you would be able to help. By the time you see this it may be too late, but would still be interested to hear your thoughts, I really like what you’ve done 🙂
Just thought I’d give an update, I did leave the floor half sanded with lots of paint streaks, I then stained it with a mahogany color, the stain did not dry on the paint, but I took a risk got some red red feet by standing in the stain and polyurethane right over the still tacky stain…luckily for my sake the poly did dry, just took a little longer, but the floor looks beautiful, and I am so glad I chose not to sand off all of the character.
Thanks for sharing and providing some very clear step by step instructions. I preparing to paint out our oak cabinets. The cabinets are in excellent condition and this is something that I have been pondering since buying the home new 20 years ago. I love the painted white cabinets with the antique finish. My floors are white ceramics with a bit of grey (they look like marble).
You mentioned that you used white primer. Did you also use white paint? I ask because in the picture following the primer picture the cabinets go from white to cream in colour. The finish product I was hopping for was a white cabinet with black or grey antique finsh.
In your experience, does the antique stain turn the colour of painted cabinets, or did you use a cream top coat paint on yours?
Thanks kindly,
Teresa
Thanks for your comment and I’m so glad you found this post helpful. 🙂
As for your cabinets; I did use WHITE primer and WHITE paint on my cabinets. The medium brown stain over the top is what creates that warm antiqued cream color in the finished product. For your cabinets, I would suggest using the same technique, white primer and white paint, and then using a grey stain over the top. I’d definitely advise you to test out a few different paint and stain color combos on scrap wood first until you get the desired look you’re going for. My only thought with using my technique with a grey stain is that the stain will turn your cabinets more of a light grey color instead of a white with grey in just the corners and crevices. This is why I advise you to test it out before hand and tweak the colors and technique until you find something you like.
Hope that helps! Good luck! 🙂
Wow! Your cabinets look fabulous and your tutorial is fantastic! I’ve got this linked to my kitchen cabinets post too today, for inspiration!
Do you think it matters whether you use flat, satin, semi-gloss? Will the stain take to any of these finishes? Thanks.
The stain will adhere to any of those finishes just fine I believe. I’ve stained over satin and semi-gloss without any problems. Thanks for checking my little blog out! 🙂
[…] different techniques one can use for antiquing furniture). When all was said and done, I found this DIY post to be the most helpful for what I wanted (and what resources I had already on hand). I decided all […]
Can you please specify the exact color of the stain, brand name, and the finish (semi-gloss or gloss) ?? Love the look of your cabinet – my granddaughter and I primed, painted her oak cabinets a creamy white and now we’re getting ready to apply the antiquing but only in the groves and some spots on the cabinet edges… appreciate your input.. your instructions confirmed what we thought the process should be. Thanks the Scott gals…
The stain was mission oak Polyshades by Minwax I believe in a satin finish. But I started with stark white cabinets. With cream cabinets you might need to choose a lighter stain if you’re only going to do the grooves and such. I’d do a test patch with two stain colors to see before you start in on the whole project. Hope that helps and good luck! So sorry about the late reply! I’ve been away from my blog too long! 🙂
I just found your blog today. Looks like you may have the same builder grade cabinets that I have. Please give me detail instructions on how you stained your cabinets,including the brand and color of stain. I am desperate. I hate my cabinets and your cabinets look so much richer. Again I am interested in how you did your cabinets,not your friends.
I’m glad you like them. I pretty much did them the way I outline in the tut on painted cabinets, just minus the painting part. I used Minwax Polyshades in Antique Walnut I believe. Depending on how light your cabinets are you might need to pick a different color. I wouldn’t choose a stain that is more than 1 or 2 shades darker than the exisitng cabinet color unless you’re going to completely strip them down to bare wood and completely restain them. Hope that helps! Good luck!
Great tutorial! I’m also wondering, like the previous poster, how you achieve this look with stain. Can you clarify this part —>Do you stain them the color you want first, and then go back over with a darker stain? Thanks!!!
Hi,
I am so happy to have stumbled upon this as well. I had no idea what to do but i wanted my cabinets to look like yours. I will follow your technique. However, I have a question. I would like my cabinets to be an antiqued grayish green when finished. What color stain would you recommend. I will try it out on a board but I thought you might have some thoughts.
I don’t have a particular color in mind to tell you, just to test it out first like you said. I’d probably choose a light gray paint with a green undertone to it and then select a stain that also has a greenish undertone. But testing it first is the key!! Good luck! Thanks for checking out my tut! 🙂
our cabinets are a thick plywood from the 50’s, and they were antiqued or pickled in a dark green. I wanted to lighten up the kitchen, so we sanded them down and primed and painted them with a semi gloss in a pale yellow. A designer suggested we sand and stain over the paint, which sounds like what you did here, sanding in spots, then stain them. What color stain would you suggest with the pale yellow, that will also bring out the green underneath as he thought
That sounds like it will be pretty! My best suggestion would simply be to paint a scrap board your cabinet color and test out some stain samples. They may even let you do this in the store before you buy. That way you know before hand what kind of result you’re going to get and you won’t have any obnoxious surprises. Thanks for the comment! hope you come back for more tuts! 🙂
Cate,
I just LOVE what you did to your kitchen cabinets.I also have standard builder grade cabinets and was looking for ways to spruce’em up a bit…and then I fell in love with what you did.Do you remember what stain you used and all the steps you took in jazzing up your kitchen? I know you said lightly sanded,then antiquied and stained.What about top coat?Was there any more steps involved? I’ve never done any wood refinishing and feel like I need a GURU to follow.Please HELP me.
I think I used the antique walnut stain from Minwax Polyshades in a satin finish. The process is basically the same as the painted cabinet tut, excpet of course you don’t paint your cabinets. You simply sand them lightly to give them some tooth, and then apply the stain with a sponge, let it sit for a second, and then wipe it off with blue painters paper towels until you achieve the desired look. I also put “worm holes” in my cabinets with an awl before staining them. If you use the Polyshades stain you don’t need to apply a top coat because the stain has one built in. As an extra step (to really “antique them”) you can use a foam craft brush and watered down dark brown acrylic craft paint and apply that along the edges and in the crevices of the cabinets and wipe off the excess. If you don this you’ll need to let it dry before staining over it. That is all of the steps I did to my cabinets. I’ve had a lot of questions about this so I think I’ll do a video tut soon. Hope that helps! Sorry its taken so long to get back to you! I’ve been totally out of the blogosphere for a while. 🙂
Wow, I really like the cabinets you did and am considering doing mine the same (I am looking at the stained ones and not the painted ones). My cabinets are oak and have a shiney (laquer) coating on them. Did you strip yours down to bare wood, or just sand them to “rough” them up?
Thanks! I just lightly sanded them to give them a little tooth to grab onto the new stain. And then I simply stained over them and wiped the stain off (like I did on the painted ones in the tut). Hope that helps! 🙂
Thanks,Cate! YES, post a video for people like myself.I would make a world of difference:)
I painted my wood table white. I lightly sanded the entire surface to rough up the shiny finish so that the primer would adhere, primed it, and painted it with two coats of white semigloss paint. I distressed the edges, but still thought it needed something to take the brand new edge off. My mother told me I could antique it by wiping it with stain. I bought a Natural MinWax stain, and nothing. Dipping a cloth in it and wiping the cloth over the surface did nothing. Using a paintbrush so that the stain would pool in the crevices only made the stain bead up and roll right off the paint. I VERY lightly sanded the inside of one of the table’s feet and tried again, to see if the stain needed a less smooth surface to adhere to, since the table was no longer porous. Nothing. I found your blog and tried using some poly left over from refurbishing our hardwood floors. It didn’t bead up, but it also didn’t change the color of the table, even if I left it on for a few minutes. I added a bit of the stain to the poly to enhance the color, but still nothing. Why did your stain work and not mine? I am DYING to make this work… Thank you!
Allie,
I’m so sorry your having such a hard time with your table! How frustrating!!
I wish I could give you more advice but without knowing and seeing your process, its hard to say what is happening with your table situation. But, here are a few questions you can ask yourself to see if something is missing in your process:
-Are you using latex water based paint?
-Are you certain the paint is a semi-gloss and not a high-gloss (gloss)? I don’t know if that would make a ton of difference but the stain usually needs something porous to adhere to and if the paint is high-gloss it might be too smooth. But it sounds like you did try to sand it back a bit and still nothing so… ?
-Are you using a stain that has a poly coat built it? Like Minwax Polyshades? Using a stain in a “satin” finish might help it to “stick”.
-Is the shade of stain you are using dark enough to give you the correct color change?
I haven’t ever had a problem with the stain not sticking to the painted surface before so I wish I could be more of help! I wish you the best of luck!! Let me know if theres anything else I can try to help you with.