Cabinets Online - Stained Cabinet Doors

Stained Cabinet Doors

When you buy unfinished cabinet doors, you obviously have to stain them. But buyer beware! You may have one idea about how you want the final product to look, but the stain you choose may give you completely different results. Below we'll outline what kinds of stain is appropriate for different kinds of wood.

The Finished Product

Stained cabinet doors only look the way you want them to if you know how the stain will look on the type of wood your cabinet doors are made of. Obviously, if you try to put a light stain on a dark wood, you probably won't get the results you want. But some woods can fool you. If you want your stained cabinet doors to look like the oak finish seen in most houses, but the cabinet wood is pine, the results will be a lot lighter than you expect. If you want your stained cabinet doors to look a certain way, turn to an expert at a paint store. See if they have samples of different wood with different shades of stain on them. If you have your own sample, bring it. Show it to them and tell them what kind of wood you're working with. This should be enough information to help them help you get results you want from your stained cabinet doors.

Before you start to stain your cabinet doors, there are a couple of other steps to take. First, inspect the wood to make sure there are no scratches, marks or rough spots. To be safe, you should give the entire cabinet a once-over with a piece of 220-grit sandpaper. Then apply a pre-staining wood conditioner, and when that dries, re-sand it. Apply one more coat of the conditioner for maximum smoothness. Then and only then are you ready to apply the stain you so carefully chose. When you are finished and the stain is dry, you'll have perfectly stained cabinet doors. All you have to do then is apply the varnish.

Hopefully this will help you out with your stained cabinet doors.