A Whole Lotta Honey Oak!

My house was built in 2003.  And that means builder grade oak, lots of it.

My only son's 5th birthday in 2004 with the oak built-in behind him.

My sister in law in my kitchen the same year with my middle daughter in my oak kitchen.

My middle daughter chasing her brother in 2006 around the oak stairs.

And my middle child again in 2011 with the oak desk in the background.

And my only son again, last year, on the same stairs.

In case you missed it, the only thing changing in the pictures is the age of the children.  The house not so much.

So this year I am gathering my courage (and inspiration from online pictures and fellow bloggers) and I will be launching into the world of gel stain and DIY makeovers.  Follow my progress on this blog.

***(Note:  I am reverse-dating the posts because having the post titles in reverse chronological order in the side bar makes my CDO go on hyperdrive....CDO is OCD but in alphabetical order...see what I mean?  By reversing the dates, it makes the titles actually go in order down the page.  Why is this so hard for google to understand?)***

My Inspiration Pictures

These are pictures of what I want my house to look like when I get done.  If only, if only...!

Practice Attempt #1

So my gel stain arrived last week, a can of General Finishes Walnut and another can of Java, along with the wipe on poly everyone suggests.  I have a plan.  I figure I will start with an upstairs bathroom, then another, then my master bath, and then slowly work my way from the linen cupboard to the banister to the kitchen.  By then I should be a master gel stainer and my kitchen should come out perfect, right?  Good plan.  But before I touch a single door, I know I should practice on something else and figure out which color I like best, walnut or java or some blend of both. Fortunately, I picked up a few spare cupboards from a garage sale.

Here is what happened...

Practice Attempt #1:
I decided to try the wipe on, wipe off Karate Kid sock method used by other bloggers with the walnut gelstain.

I sanded one drawer, not too much, just to rough it up as I had read on other's blogs.  Then I liberally applied the stain, rubbing it all around the edges.  It was fun, like finger painting.  I wasn't sure how long to let it sit, but I figured about a minute...then I turned the sock and wiped away the excess, trying to keep the remaining color even. I was really pleased.   Below you can see the drawer front with one coat, as compared to the rest of the kitchen.  It's not much darker, but it is a little warmer, and the color is nice and even, and the original grain shows through.   I thought, "Wow!  It might just be as easy as they say."

 

The next day, I came back to apply a second coat.  This time I must have wiped too many times across the middle, because I noticed that the color was only darkening around the edges, but the middle of the drawer front hadn't really changed, almost like I was picking up the color rather than putting down a new layer.  The more I tried to fix it, the more color I seemed to be taking off.  Frustrated, I decided to stop, and let it rest longer.

Then, after two days, and with great care I smeared around and wiped away a third coat.  I didn't let the stain sit very long this time before wiping, out of fear that the new coat would somehow soften the previous layers.  The result this time was better. A deeper color and more even  Here is the drawer front after the third coat, next to the original color.  This time, I could see much more contrast.  I was feeling hopeful again.

But I still wondered what would happen with a forth coat.  Would the color get deeper?  Would it go on evenly?  All the blogs out there indicated that it would so I waited two more days and went for a fourth coat.  Nada, nothing, same color as above! Either I was wiping color off again, or I had maxed out the color possibility of the stain.

Still wanting a darker color, my next attempt was to try mixing a little java stain into the walnut stain.  The next day, I carefully measured one tablespoon of java and three table spoons of walnut into a tupperware and mixed with a spoon for at least five minutes.  Then I smeared this onto my same drawer front.  I figured that if I liked the result, I could try this same mix again with a virgin piece.  Below is the result.  It is hard to see in the picture, but there was a more reddish tone to the wood that I wasn't digging.

*Picture to come*

Practice Attempt #2

For my next practice session, I decided to try out another method suggested by other bloggers, the "sponge brush method".  I had originally intended to remove another plank of honey oak wood from one of the spare cabinets, but after several attempts to remove a fake front or a door without success (dh had already gone to bed) I gave up and plopped down with my can of stain right in front of the cabinet on the kitchen floor.  Fortunately, the stain held up to its no-drip reputation.

Again after cleaning and sanding and wiping, I proceeded to brush on some walnut stain with a foam brush.  It seemed that the stain went on thicker with the brush, and I was getting more streaks than before.  It was easier to get into the crevices of the door front, but to get off all the stain I ended up having to wipe it anyway.  To me, the color didn't look much different than it had in Practice Attempt #1, which made sense since the final step was to wipe, the same as I had before.

Several bloggers had mentioned that the color gets better after two or three coats, so the next day, I came back again with a fresh sponge brush and went for a second coat.  I didn't want to wipe it off again, because I felt it would still be the same method as Attempt #1, and this time I was supposed to be testing out the "brush method:", so I applied the second coat with the sponge brush as thin and evenly as I could, didn't wipe, then backed up to take a look.  In short, it literally looked like $#!+.  Very streaky.

I knew I had to do something different.  Since the cabinet seemed ruined at this point, and because the results were already so bad, it really didn't matter what I tried next, so I split my approach into two new strategies..

On the top part, I decided to see if I could remove color, just in case I needed to do so later on an actual cabinet in my home.  I figured that if the stain was removing itself before, that would be the easiest way to remove stain this time.  I took some steel wool, dipped it into the stain, and proceeded to scrub the existing stain on the fake drawer front.  It worked, the color came right off, and I was almost back to the original color.  Whew!  So at least now I knew I could fix mistakes.

On the bottom I took a different approach.  Several bloggers had said that their first and second coats of stain looked terrible, but if you just keep going it looks great.  Okay, I thought, I will give it a try.  I applied a third coat with the sponge brush as evenly as I could.  Again, some of the color was pulling up, some was going on thicker.  At this point it looked like my eleven year old had done it.  I remembered then that this stain is really just polyurethane with paint added in.  The cabinet was beginning to look painted, and badly painted at that.  I think that's why so many people opt for the java stain, and go for several coats...they are essentially painting their cupboards and going with enough layers to get a solid color.  But that is not the look I want.  I kept going, but in the end, it still looked like $#!+.

Practice Attempt #3

For my next and what I hope will be my final practice attempt, I re-stained the top piece from the cabinet I had previously stained, and scrubbed down from Practice Attempt #2.  For this one I put together all that I had read and learned through trial and error and came up with my own method...

I reasoned that every time I put on new stain, no matter how long I waited, I was pulling up old stain.  So it stands to reason that if I sealed each layer in with a thin coat of poly, then the next coat wouldn't pull up the last.  Good plan right?

And of course, this time the boss was watching...

After lightly sanding the top piece one more time and wiping it down, I used the sock method to smear on a thin coat of Walnut stain.  I let that dry for a good six to eight hours.  Then I gently smeared on a very thin coat of General Finishes Wipe on Polyurethane in Satin using a new sock.  I let that dry for about the same six to eight hours. Then came the moment of truth...I used a clean corner of the staining sock and smeared on a thin but healthy coat of Walnut stain.  I quickly smeared it as evenly as I could and then wiped it off trying to leave a very thin coat behind.

It worked!!!!  The stain was going on evenly, it was not pulling up the color as before, and the color was deepening very slightly.  I had hope again.  The next morning, another thin coat of wipe on poly, and six hours after that another very thin coat of Walnut stain.  And here is the result after three coats of stain and two coats of poly...(it is the part in the middle).

The blotchiness on the main cabinet is due to the fact that I didn't completely clean off the old stain or try for perfection on that part.  My main focus was on the fake drawer front.  I am super pleased with how even and rich the color is looking on that part.  I placed an original honey oak piece on top for comparison.  The bottom door still has the "painted" on stain from Attempt #2 which I do not like. 









Here is another shot of the cabinet and the original honey oak color in the background.  What do you think?  One more coat of poly and stain?  I think so too.  One more shade darker and I think it will be just perfect.











Update...After the looking at the cabinet in the morning light, I have decided that it is still too orange for my liking.  The color is much closer to the red in the top picture, even though it looks more brown in the second.  This color would be okay if it is the best I can do, but what I really want is a rich walnut color with less orange.  Oh, and if someone would just get that pea out from under my mattress, life would be perfect!

Practice Attempt #4

So far, none of the methods I have tried for using gel stain has given me confidence to try a real cabinet in my home.  Everything has either turned out streaky or too orangey/red.  However, try I must, because as of this morning there is a new deadline for completion of at least my daughter's bathroom, based on the fact that yesterday I finally ordered the tile to replace her 14 year old laminate.  The tile will be installed in exactly 11 days.  If I want to stain the cabinet before the tile, to avoid risking getting stain on the new tile and grout, then I must figure this staining thing out by then, and leave myself time to actually stain the cabinet.
 
Tonight, inspired by this video from Doug Gorton I am going for Attempt #4, using a paint brush to apply the gel stain.

I first poured some mineral spirits into a glass container (I actually poured it into styrofoam first, don't try that).  I then proceeded to use the paintbrush I had picked up to spread a little gel stain around half of the back of the door on the scrap cupboard.  I spread it around as thin as possible and as it got a little tacky, which happened quickly with the thin coat, I dipped the brush in the mineral spirits, cleaned it off a bit on a towel, and then attempted to spread and feather the stain as Doug had in the video.  I have to say, it went really, really well.  The coat of stain went on thin and even and the color was much, much easier to control than it had been with the sock and wipe method.

Here are the results after one coat.  I only did the left half of the door to leave the right half for another attempt.

I waited 24 hours as Doug had warned, and then with brush in one hand, a turpentine rag in the other, and a vision of walnut stained cabinets in my head, I went for a second coat.

 

As you can see, it didn't go so well.  I didn't go for a thin coat, only because I was trying to follow the method used the first time.  Put down stain, spread it around with the brush, dry brush on rag, try to even out stain...except the stain was still too thick, like paint.  So I tried to wipe the brush more and pull off a little color.  The problem I had was that the color was pulling up too quickly in some places, but staying down to thick in others.  I tried using a bit more mineral spirits to help keep the stain workable, which it did, but I still could not get the color to be even, no matter how "feathery" I tried to be with my brush.  And I noticed that instead of being able to see the wood grain, instead all I could see were the brush stroke lines making a wood-like pattern.  Again, not good enough. 

Practice Attempt #5

On to Attempt #5...Polyshades! 

After reading this blog from John Petersik on using Minwax Polyshades to darken his kitchen, I knew that unless I gave it a try, I would be forever wondering  if maybe all the hype over gel stain has taken me down a dark road, and that a another stain might have been easier all along. I  HATE what-ifs!  So tonight I hit the local Lowe's and picked up a can of Minwax Polyshades stain in Honey Satin, a color I have never tried before.  I would have bought the same color John used, Tudor, but they didn't have it.  However, the Honey is a "New" color and it looks really similar, so I am wondering if it is the same with a new name.  Just to be sure, I also ordered Tudor color on Amazon.  And I must say, am the proud owner of quite the little stain collection.  

I can't say that I wasn't nervous about the Polyshades, for two reasons.  First, several of the reviews on this product on Amazon are really bad.  No, I mean really, really bad, as in seven circles of Hell bad.  The other reason was that I was about to stain the very last corner of scrap wood that I had.  What if it didn't work?  All the reviews were so bad, maybe I shouldn't, but the blog made it look so easy.  And he even made a video...

Then guess what?  My hubby, who had been trying to ignore my current session of indecision finally noticed that I wasn't actually staining and after a quick debriefing as to the current situation, went to the garage and returned with guess what...another scrap cabinet door!!!  And that is exactly why Istill love him, for his big piece of wood!  And I told him so. ;-)

With my new scrap wood all taped into sections I eagerly opened the polyshades.  I mixed the color, stirred, not shaken, and then proceeded to dip in my cheap one dollar brush and apply the Polyshades to one lightly sanded corner of the door.  It went on surprisingly easy.  However, I noticed immediately that brush strokes were going to be a problem.  So I grabbed one of the clean staining socks and quickly rubbed it off.

Back online, I found a reviewer who said he actually applied the Polyshades using the sock method that others have used with gel stain.  Could that be possible????  Okay, why not.  I opened the stain back up and dipped in one corner of a staining sock.  By now I am not even protecting my fingers anymore.  I quickly smeared the stain around and then used the brush and sock in combination to get the sticky stain out of the corners of the detailing and then to smear it around as thin as possible.  Guess what?  It worked!

The polyshades went on smooth and easy with that sock, there were no brush lines, and the color was even, super light, but even.  But I still wasn't going to celebrate yet.  I was no blushing bride this time, I had seen what a second coat could do.  So I waited a whole 24 hours, rather than the eight hours suggested on the can, then lightly sanded with steel wool, and went for the second coat.  Wait for it...the second coat went on as smooth and as easily as the first!  The sock method totally works with Polyshades.

In this picture, I have put two coats on the upper left corner and one coat on the upper right corner, the bottom two parts are untouched.  As you can see, the tinting is very light.

Since the color was still so light, I decided to wait another 24 hours and go for a third coat, and then 24 hours later a fourth coat.  I did use steel wool between the first and second, and second and third coats, but didn't between the third and fourth.

Here is the door after four coats:

As you can see, the color is slowly building to a warm brown, but without the streaks and darker parts I was getting with the gel stain.  Some people may be able to get this much color from just one or two coats, but I have been applying super thin coats using a sock.  I am finding that they dry fine in 24 hours and don't pull up previous color in the way that the gel stain did.

In looking at the color I noticed something else, I don't know if it is showing up for you, but the Polyshades Honey color was actually cutting down the orange/red color in the doors, the very thing I was hating from the beginning.  Honestly, when I had bought the Polyshades, I had expected to hate it.  I only bought it so I could cross it off my list of things I had tried, but now that I could see its potential, I went back online and researched it.

It turns out that Polyshades is also Polyurethane (duh!), but made out of the same stuff as the gel stain, only a little more sticky and runny.  But unlike gel stain, Polyshades doesn't go down well on raw wood, which is probably why so many people get terrible results from it.  Polyshades is tint suspended in polyurethane and made specifically to go over preexisting polyfinishes or paint.  By Minwax's own website, they do not recommend Polyshades to go over lacquer, which is another reason some people may have gotten bad results.  I personally am falling in love with the stuff.