When my husband and I received the keys to our new home (new to us, but really 16 years old), we knew the first room we wanted to tackle was the kitchen. We were dead set on having the kitchen completed before we actually moved in the house and we knew it was going to be the largest room to remodel in the house.
The home we moved into had nice, very salvageable, light colored 20 x 20 tile flooring in the kitchen. We thought dark cabinets would look best with this flooring. I was a little reluctant about taking on the job of staining dark cabinets until I came across Monicas Blog. Monica was so clear and concise in the steps of her task to stain her bathroom cabinets a dark espresso color. She immediately made me confident in our kitchen project and that I could turn our oak cabinets into something beautiful. Before I made any moves in the kitchen, I made sure I had all of the supplies I was going to need. General Finishes Gel Stain in Java (the best place to purchase it is through Amazon here or directly through Woodcraft here. As far as I know, your local big box stores does not carry this stain)
- General Finishes Satin Poly Topcoat (you can purchase through the same stores)
- 6+ pairs of mens socks (The thicker the better! I just used my husbands old ones)
- Latex Gloves
- Tape (and marker) for labeling the cabinet doors and taping off surfaces while staining
- Goof Off Wipes (great for little oopsies because this dark stain can get messy. These saved me several times!)
- Power drill for removing/replacing hinges (we were too impatient to use a screwdriver)
- Foam brushes (we bought several because they are so cheap and never bothered to wash or salvage them)
- Some type of floor protections (newspaper, plastic, drop cloth, and old tarp whatever works, but you want to protect your floors!)Sanding block (something to sand lightly just to enough to rough up your cabinets. No need to over do it)
Step 1: Prep Your Space
Remove any existing handles and knobs (we did not have any), cover the floors under the cabinets and remove everything from your cabinets and counter tops. It wouldnt hurt to wipe down your cabinets either with a wet cloth or the Goof Off wipes. Just to get any dirt, grime or old sticky food off your cabinets.
Step 2: Sanding
Take your sanding block and lightly sand all doors (inside and out) and all other surfaces of the cabinet. You want to make sure you are consistent and dont over do some areas and go too light in other areas. Just rough up the cabinets enough to remove some of the builder grade clear coat/enamel on your cabinets. If your hand is cramping after a few doors, youre working too hard! Once you are done sanding, clean up the sanding dust with water or wipes. The more you can get rid of the sanding mess, the better.
Step 3: Labeling and Removing Doors/Drawers
Go through each cabinet and drawers and label each one. You can use a number system (1, 2, 3) or direction (N, E, S, W) and make sure you label with tape inside the cabinets as well on the door or drawers. Once they are all labeled, find a place where you will be staining and storing the doors and drawers during this project (and protect that area too!). Luckily for us, our house was empty and we planned on having new carpet installed so I used our empty family room and bedrooms as my work rooms on these cabinets. We also planned on getting new oil rubbed bronze door hinges so I did not bother saving any existing hinges. If you do plan on saving your hinges, make sure you keep them in order with each cabinet and label those too. It will make it much easier when you re-hang your cabinet doors.
Step 4: Staining
I went through and stained the entire framework of the kitchen cabinets first. I put the latex glove on, sock over my right hand, and dipped a light coat of stain on the top portion of my hand and began applying stokes with my hand on the cabinet. I used my pointer finger or the sponge brushed to help me if the stain clumped up when applying and to help to get in some of the small crevices. At first sight, I was weary if this stain was actually going to cover the existing oak color on these cabinets. What you need to realize during the first step, its better to go thin with your coats than try to rush the color coverage. Also, this is a gel stain, so it will not penetrate into the wood, it is going to more or less coat the cabinet. Dont get discouraged, it will cover! That is why it takes three coats.
After the first coat. You can see it is very streaky!
Another shot of the first coat.
The second coat is pictured below. Much better. But not quite done.
And the third coat of stain. (Excuse our mess!)
As far as the cabinets doors, I did 3 coats of stain on the inside of the doors and let them dry before I ever turned them over and started the outside of the door. Ive heard of people using painters pyramid or leaning the doors against something in order to stain two sides at once, but it just didnt work for me. I gave up and chose the more time consuming way of one side at a time.
An extra room taken over as my work space.
I let the first coat of stain dry 12 hours before I put the 2nd one on, then 24 hours before I put the third coat on. You will want that third coat to dry around 4 days until you start a clear coat. I think these times can vary depending on the weather or season. Just use your better judgement, if the stain is still tacky to touch, Id wait. You dont want to rush it!
Step 5: Clear Coat & Re-Hanging & Hardware
By the time I had completed all three coats of stain, I was in love with my new cabinets. To my surprise, the clear coat was harder to apply than I anticipated. It doesnt have that same gel coverage as the gel stain. It is a lot more watery, but the results are amazing! It is a lot harder to apply with the glove and sock but I still highly recommend it. It does get drippy and messy. I definitely used my sponge brushes a lot more on the clear coat to help spread it around and coat the cabinets evenly. I applied two coats of clear finish about 24 hours apart and let them dry a few days.
After two coats of clear coat. You can see the rest of the kitchen is coming along as well. (I will explain all of that in my next post)
I had my husband re-hang my doors before I did the clear coat but this was just my preference. I was tired of working on the ground and I didnt mind working around the new hinges. We had gone back and forth a few times on whether we were going to get new Oil Rubbed Bronze or Silver hardware for the doors but we decided to go with oil rubbed bronze to match our other accents in the house. We ordered all of our hinges and hardware from Amazon.
Here are some pictures of our finished project. For more information on the other DIY projects in our Kitchen Makeover click here.
It has been almost 6 months since I stained the cabinets. The stain and clear coat have held up very well. My son drives cars, toy blowers and power tools into the cabinets all of the time and they never scratch or ding them up. I have found a few dings in my bathroom cabinets (which I stained the same time as the kitchen) and a great trick is to use a permanant black marker to cover it. If the ding is small, the marker looks great.
I hope this post is helpful for anyone interested in staining their cabinets. It is not as hard as you think! Feel free to comment with any questions 
{{I used this same method of staining when we remodeled our Laundry Room, Spare Bathroom, Master Bathroom and Family Room. Feel free to check out these posts as well for more on staining cabinets or DIY home remodels.}}
xo Marci
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