Thank for doing this! Everything Ive used makes my red oak look pink! And the second one is General Finishes Oil Base Gel Stain I read about in this article https://woodimprove.com/best-wood-stains/#product1. I have been exploring the idea of staining my maple cabinets. I didnt know they made a white stain, I want to try it! They will never match but they are closer than before. This is not a process that can be duplicated on jobsite-made cabinetry, and is essential for a truly long-lasting and beautiful finish. A good choice when an even, consistent look is desired (think Contemporary, for example), Crown Point Cabinetry462 River Road Claremont, NH 03743. Really! Riftsawn and quartersawn oak is gorgeous, but plainsawn needs to go away! That was a lot of work. Thanks for pulling this together! Its not even like its a huge price difference! I really want to stain some birch wood in a medium reddish stain now, for a MCM inspired TV cabinet. Thanks for doing this, it really is beneficial! And I LOVE that white stain someone mentioned they cant find it hope that isnt an issue. I personally like their water based Polycrylic. My only complaint is that you DID NOT WATERMARK YOUR PHOTOS!! Any thoughts or stains you might suggest would be so grately appreciated. Another way for us to stay in touch! This will hopefully help you see how Pine, Birch, Poplar, White Oak and Red Oaks undertones play with different stain undertones. In fact, it looked almost pinky gray. This is so beyond helpful! Ive referred back to this so many times. 2. Im currently working on a dining table for our British Colonial interior using Red Oak and was concerned with color matching the existing dark woods. Poplar has green undertones. Bravo! I am looking to build a platform / platform bed and I have white oak grey pink floors and looking to contrast it with either a less grainy wood like natural Birch, Maple, and not White Oak, but may want to stain it with a semi glossed Charcoal Gray. I may do something with some blue glaze to help neutralize the yellow but well see. We tested a few for ourselves but this is helping me to find some direction in what to try next. Any cherry or red furniture I bleach before doing all the other steps. I have most of my new doors (they were about a $100 a piece, so they are poplar I guess, maybe birch) painted repose Gray on one side, but the other side I want to stain. more expensive) and there was some improvement. Weve been wanting to do a wood/stain study for years now and in my head, I wanted to doeverytype of wood with about 20 different stains each. This is a wonderful write up. Sunny. Poor kitchen floors, they deserved to match! Over time, clear stained maple goes from an almost birch white to a really deep yellow gold. I appreciate your work doing this, but now Im more confused! Thank you We recently moved to Texas and I need to darken my oak furniture. Sometimes mixing stain colors can help, but I dont know what the right formula would be off the top of my head. THANK YOU!!!! Thank you again for all the time you put into keeping the general public informed. Thank you for conducting this experiment! My floor guy really doesnt want to change the color of banister and spindles. Perhaps someone could give me their opinions of what wood and stain to use with black iron pipe? None of the charts here state what kind of wood is being tested. i want to try the white after sadning but i think ill do the walnut to match my dark floors and grey corrian counters. You could even paint it a contrasting color! The effect can change not only from stain to stain, but from wood species to wood species and even from one board to another within the same wood species. Im guessing theres no poly on top of any of these? I think some people just dont care about that sort of thing! totally perfect sponsored post. And yes, the prestain saves the day on birch. nightstands Id like to refinish to make more at home after this post Im seriously considering stain instead of paint. Thanks! lighten, darken, turn redder, etc.)? We finally had our floors refinished last summer to try to get them a similar color. My mistake! Very useful to see how various woods behave and really helps in choosing what kind of wood to use! We put in red oak because our flooring guy had a bunch of it and we got a good deal. I want a matt black stain with no shine at all. This just confirms my hatred for oak. Minwax is my go to stain. Did you wipe off right away? Really enjoyed this post! Thank you, thank you, thank you! Probably, but youd likely need a combo of stains and Im not sure what that combo would be. Extremely helpful!! The Jacobean was a one of our choices, Im leaning toward Ebony now with 2 coats. Is the Minwax conditioner a substitute for water-popping? thanks. How many coats did you apply and how long did you leave each coat on for? Love this post! Ive never used a pre-conditioner but after a few not so great results, I decided to do so in the future. View our palette of beautiful stains on various wood species here: American Black WalnutCherryDouglas FirFlat Sawn White OakMapleRift Cut White OakQuartersawn White Oak (including Surf highlights and Texture Brushing), Rift cut white oak yields the straightest lines of grain compared to the other ways a log can be sawn (Quartersawn, Plain Sawn or Live Sawn). Thanks so much for your help and for this wonderful post! Im not sure how (or if it is even possible) to achieve the color I want. When working with maple or birch, you usually leave the stain on longer to achieve a darker result. Joining our weekly newsletter gives you access to exclusive content, never-before-seen photos, your questions answered, and our favorite DIYs. I had never used a pre-stain conditioner and also wanted to see the denefit of doing so. We used Jacobean everywhere after testing a small area and it hid the old spots, and the old and new floors matched! Using a catalyzed varnish we hand spray our sealer coat, laying down the proper thickness to provide the foundation of a beautiful and durable clearcoat. Oh man, where was this post in the summer when I got new floors?! The pine looks SO MUCH better with the conditioner. Best option is to cut small pieces of what youre going to be using and do some at-home tests to see the impact. Very helpful. yes! Interesting! It was extremely helpful. We partnered with Stuga on a line of hardwood floors The Ingrid is really livable, and the color is very neutral. looking to refinish our hardwood floors. When all pieces have cooled, they are hand sanded with an ultrafine grit sandpaper, and then rubbed with a tack cloth to remove the smallest traces of dust. Add Minwax Ebony color stain to this experiment! This is excellent! I have been doing wood finishing for over 20 years and I cant tell you how hard it is to get a client to appreciate how different stains look on different types of wood. In an industry that often feels designed to make you discontent, we want this to be place you come for inspiration, ideas, and encouragement to make the space you're already in feel like home. Really appreciated it you could totally make a series out of it! The information I came to the comments looking for! I agree with Sarah! Exactly what I needed to move forward with my project! So interesting to see the stains all lined up. They look incredible. All of the wood types accepted the stain well, except the non-conditioned Birch side. Such useful info! I bought silver-toned door hardware for the painting gray side and antique brass for the side I want to stain. one i have used cuprinol dries to s shine. Minwax Jacobean. WOULD LOve to see samples of stains on cedar! But the Dark Walnut goes with our new wood floors and the vibe of our house better. I am mid-century-modern by design and a touch of industrial (the concrete floor). You should really check out Invisble by Loba. We sampled Jacobean and dark walnut on pine and our samples came out much darker than yours. By the way, that article mentions Minwax Stain also. It is the matte-est sealer I have ever seen or used. Sign up below! Im afraid we wouldnt be able to tell you which to choose far too many factors involved and were not there to see any of them in person. Thank you SO much for doing this! Definitely referencing this any time we have a staining project. It takes a stain well, is durable, inexpensive, and a good cabinet choice. Awesome post. I love this! The pine board looked the least natural with this stain. However, I noticed in your photos showing Dark Walnut and Jacobean, the pine samples for each color look much lighter than the same colors do in the photo of only pine boards with all of the colors. You all did a lot of work thank you! Minwax is always my go-to for wood staining, Ive been using it for almost 20 years now. I should add, I did solid cherry butcher block countertops, kitchen cabinets painted Repose Gray (as are all walls and trim). The process starts with stain being carefully hand applied, and hand wiped. I assumed it was soft because it had the most trouble accepting stains. Most excellent! White Oak cant take a bad picture. I am restoring a significantly damaged Gunn barrister bookcase.in oak.and your comparison has helped me finalize my choice! Prep- if you sand wood, the grit that you finish at will dramatically change how much stain is absorbed. This is one of the most helpful blog posts Ive seen on stain colors. Red oak definitely is more tricky, but so beautiful, too. Also, professional pros (the ones who take their time to listen to you and do the job right) always water-pop the wood when using dark stains. I just sent them an example photo of something I like, but didnt specify a stain. Minwax recently came out with a Simply White stain and Im in love with it! Hi, I Am searching for best stain for cedar fence. We are in the middle of updating our 1940s fixer upper and last month we stained our upstairs, red oak floors Jacobean and I LOVE them. I would like to figure out a way to make them look the same but really dont like the pink red undertone . Im sure you have saved many of us from buying the wrong stain/wood combination for a project. :D Thanks for the comparison so useful!! Minwax Pickled Oak. This is so great that you are partnering with Minwax. Just wanted to say thank you. Any help would be appreciated. I loved this. Hi, I have sanded an old pine dresser that was coated years ago in an orangy shellac. In case you missed the announcement in ourLove Letter, the wallpaper is officially installed in the laundry room, and I could not be ANY MORE IN LOVE! I do need help though. With stain, more layers likely wouldnt help because the wood is still supposed to come through. This is a great post and helped me decide which stain to use on the twin bed my husband is making for our son! Ive been trying to match the legs, mixing shades and testing them, but your study really simplified it beautifully. Most definitely as long as theyre the same type (oil or water base, preferably same brand). Oh and Im spraying the shelf bracket flat black. Think of all trim and stair parts as furniture. Im so sad I was using this for reference. Or a sort of gray stain that would really cut the yellow could work! I am thinking I will use a golden oak stain and if its not perfect I may add a coat of white over it. Thanks for the inspiration. Like I said, I wish we could do 15 more of these! Every wood species benefitted greatly from the conditioner with this stain. Poplar looked a little bit like watermelon. Pieces are then set aside; this important pause allows the stain to achieve the necessary depth and readies the pieces for the next step: our sealer coat. Ooh, I could see that! Birch has pink undertones. We are here to help. and test out the stain first. They look too orangey for my liking which I find happens frequently with stains and now wonder if I can go over them in a neutral darker stain but it will be a major mess, time commitment and height bravery (as they are on high parts of our house). Our wood grain Shaker cabinet fronts were designed for busy, high-traffic homes like ours. And with our skilled finishing team, we create some of the most beautiful and durable finishes for your cabinetry. Im a beginner learning how to refinish furniture sanding is therapeutic to me, and I love seeing the potential in the wood under all the old stain/ varnish. Thanks! My project is to build a side table and coffee table using 1/2 black iron pipe and then picking an edge glued wood for the top of it. I want to change that to Dark Walnut. thank you so much for this. LOVE this postvery helpful!! simply the best thing Ive seen on how various stains work on various woods Thank you for doing this. Minwax Dark Walnut. I only wish you could have tested all of them. I love the simply white but dont want it to turn pink as it ages! Its far safer to do a light coat, let it dry, check itand add another if needed, than to over do it and have to fix it or start over. <3, Thank you SO much for this post!! ), Red Oak (too dark) and Red Chestnut (too red). What a great post! Thank you for doing this! As such, we are in business, crafting cabinetry and taking on new orders. I assumed it was the quality of wood. I had to comment because I am standing in front of the stain display at Lowes and I am trying to pick a stain. Not only does the hardness effect how a wood will accept stain (harder woods tend to accept stains better and more evenly) but also the natural color of the wood. Your illustrations were fantastic and saved me from making a huge mistake. This post was super interesting! LOL. PLEASE WATER MARK YOUR PHOTOS SO I CAN FIND THE PROPER SOURCE! Your post was the clincher. Were in the process of refinishing our red oak floors and have searched what feels like the entirety of the internet for a post like this! Thank you for taking the time to do it. Im about to make a few frames with pine and Ill definitely be getting the conditioner now! This was perfectly timed! Loved seeing all the side by side comparisons. As a reminder, here are all the types of wood in their natural, raw state: 1. Hopefully Ill be able to decide if this is something I want to tackle. Ive been seeking for good stain for my bedroom pine furniture. My first go around I noticed an embarrassing amount of blotching from the stain. You want some contrasts. The beauty of wood grain is never in doubt, with an unmistakable warmth that no other finish can match. Thank you so much for doing this! If your floor is going to look blotchy, damaged, or like a wild animal skin, better to not even refinish. Also, is it okay to stain wood inside the home or are the fumes pretty strong? THANK YOU. You can get a matte finish polycrylic and that often causes the least amount of change. Any thoughts on how I can approach staining them without making it a thesis project? The red oak brr nightmares of 1980s cabinets and heart cutout furniture. Thanks again. So I remembered your post and whipped it up.. thank you. Poplar looked awesome in almost every one except the Golden Pecan. The white oak looks even, but the red oak looks like zebra stripesalthough the dark walnut showed less contrast than the jacobean. Plywood if usually birch veneered for these reasons. Of course you didnt do the two stains Ive been wondering about (Provincial and Driftwood) but still ;-) Guess I will have to do my own small test for the stained shelves Im installing in our wall nook. Our home is a traditional colonial with all white oak floors except the previous homeowners remodeled the kitchen and dining room and put in red oak! We did a very light sanding and did stain these inside. Youll see just how necessary it is in a minute, because of course we took our observations one step further and only used conditioner on the bottom half of each piece of wood so you can see the difference it makes. It really is gorgeous! It totally removes the red/pink undertones! I love seeing all these options! This is so useful!!! This final baking is equally critical, as it promotes the cross-linking between the sealer and topcoat, yielding our famous gorgeous finish. Great post & great blog!! Thanks a lot for all the help! Love your post! Would the stain obscure more of the grain if left on more than 2 minutes? Would it take that stain well? We have been using Pickled Oak on a ton of projects lately. Im curious if you sanded the samples, that also makes a big difference especially with pine Im surprised by some of your results on the pine, I use pine with minwax everyday to build furniture and I get very different results. Thanks for doing all the hard work! That being said, I do love pine in those middle shades. Im looking for a medium toned, neutral-ish stain (I guess). Yes, this is my childhood home. Im afraid of having the oil based turn simply white on white oak any bit of amber or golden. You can see clearly the woods color undertones (yellow, pink, green, neutral, red) but they arent nearly as pronounced. I was going to use quarter sawn white oak vs. quarter sawn red oak. This is absolutely one helluva valuable test and comparison. Had I known that I wouldve picked red oak again for my kitchen although its not my preference. This is the BEST ever and so thorough! Thank you for doing such a great post! On a side note, am I the only one that reads these blog posts in Julias voiceover since they started the podcast? I love wood refinishing, hope maybe someone finds this useful :). I personally prefer medium colors so I actually really like the medium stains best on the pine (although that birch is beautiful and I wish I was doing that haha). It can be applied over any wood but is especially necessary when working with soft or porous woods like pine, alder, birch, and maple. Do you have tips for re-staining newly nailed western red cedar shingles? Thank you so much Julia, Great post! We have really loved putting it everywhere in our house. Your stain study was most helpful. In addition to being beautiful, Ingrid is really durable we have three kids, and we always have a home construction project going on. There is very little difference between the conditioned and unconditioned white and red oaks, but the other three definitely benefited from the pre-stain conditioner. Wow! We applied it then wiped it off after about 2 minutes. Second time, I purchased wood that was a bit higher quality (a.k.a. :). I loved this post so much! I wouldnt feel bad about painting it, really. Ill use your post to give her some examples. This maybe the most helpful blog post ever. We came to picked Oak after looking into wax-based finishes (Bona, etc.) Im curious of a recipe for red oak to match white oak. The pine turned more gray than anything. Great article one of the very best Ive seen on the effects of Minwax stains on different woods. The wood types we chose also are vastly different, ranging from extremely soft (birch) to hard (red oak) with undertones all over the map. I wondered why the pine wood looks such a different color in the picture where you have all the pine boards next to each other vs. in the pictures with the Jacobean and Dark Walnut stains? Im going to give it a try. However since the top gets plenty of use I put on a coat of varathene. Anyway thank you again! Ive been dying to redo my 1990s era red oak floors for a long time now, but havent been able to find any really useful information. Nealjust curious.what stain are you going with for an A&C piece? Originally, the old doors, were all maple and at one point in the 80s, my mom had the door facing the living area painted along with along with a lot of of solid-wood paneling. THANK YOU so much for this! Some refinished do not sand super smooth (finishing below 220) for this reason, and instead use top coats to gain smoothness.