What are your thoughts on this? Extremely helpful!! The color looked really nice, and I instantly knew it would work in my space, too, because it was similar enough. Poplar looked awesome in almost every one except the Golden Pecan. Best option is to cut small pieces of what youre going to be using and do some at-home tests to see the impact. Naturals in a very red way. It totally removes the red/pink undertones! You can see right off the bat that Varathanes version of Early American is a little darker than Dalys. We have been trying to pick a miniwax stain for birch cabinets going into our basement. There are 2 options of stains I found for me but I cant decide which one would be the best. So interesting to see the stains all lined up. Poor kitchen floors, they deserved to match! I'm Amanda, and I live in the suburbs of Austin, Texas with my husband and two sons. You could definitely go with black paint instead! Still love the solid wood cabinets, still love the arrangement. I wanted to point out 2 other variables though that would affect color, just in case someone with different results might be wondering why: 1. I made it custom for myself! My mistake! I think General Finishes is better because as the author says its great for difficult to stain pine and its easy to apply for the person who has no experiences in staining wood like me. By mixing equal parts Minwax Early American and Classic Gray, I came up with my very own personal stain. Thank you so much for your post, it helped my husband and I out immensely after going back and forth to the hardware store to get samples of stain! Do you think the Red Oak with a Simply White stain would turn pink as it ages? Sorry if I missed it, but are all of these showing just one coat of stain? nightstands Id like to refinish to make more at home after this post Im seriously considering stain instead of paint. The information I came to the comments looking for! Any thoughts on how I can approach staining them without making it a thesis project? Same color, different brand. Just wanted to say thank you. The desktop succulent planter is made from Doug fir, while the pencil holder, dog bed, mini succulent planters, and end table are all made with various white woods (spruce, pine, or fir). It will look fine. 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. Recently, I came across an image of a beautiful room, engulfed in a mural, much like the studybut it was a formal dining room. Did you use a wood conditioner prior to using the wood accelerator? Thanks for this post. Thank you so, so much for this exercise. Right now the jury is out regarding the pricing. Im looking for a medium toned, neutral-ish stain (I guess). }); Im trying to get a greige color using knotty Alder. It took down the intensity and gave it a softer, slightly aged look. Question, do have any idea as to whether the sealer/shellac will change the stain colors at all (i.e. I learned a lot from this, and it helped me narrow down my options for a teak cabinet Im redoing. This is a really amazing comparison, greats job!! None of the charts here state what kind of wood is being tested. Its one I reach for all the time for really great coverage and a beautiful, rich tone. Also agree with comment about poly. 5. Thanks for this post! Very interesting! Birch has pink undertones. Would that eliminate the pink? This is a really awesome post, thank you so much! 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. Thank you! Great post & great blog!! But I know that for me, when the wood Im using isnt shown in the sample, I dont really trust the samples anymorewhich is why purchasing a ketchup-packet-sized stain sample to take home and try out on a scrap piece can be a great option. This has to be one of my favorite stains, and no wonder. I appreciate your work doing this, but now Im more confused! This was incredibly helpful. Im so so impressed with these wood accelerators. Birch is a hardwood (both yellow and white) and rates a 4 out of 5 on the hardness scale. haha. Isnt that going to make staining tricky as shown with this post, different woods take on different looks? I only want to create more pieces, just so I can stain them, haha! window.fd('form', { Both of these woods take stain similarly, so theres not a lot of contrast with this one. Im open to suggestions on which of the ones here to use or if you have something else I should look at (different color stain), let me know! 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. That way you can see stain colors not just in sample form, but in a real environment, and it just might help you make the best choice! I only wish you could have tested all of them. Love this post!! Also, is it okay to stain wood inside the home or are the fumes pretty strong? That is bland. This was originally a part of my How to Stain Wood Guide, but I wanted to pull out this information into a separate post for those of you who know how to stain wood but want to see how wood stain colors look on various different types of wood. And Red Oak should probably stay away from things that add even more red to it (like Pickled Oak and Golden Pecan). 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. Sometimes mixing stain colors can help, but I dont know what the right formula would be off the top of my head. Poplar looked a little bit like watermelon. I also tried with and without conditioner, which didnt seem to make much difference with the darker samples. As beautiful as they are, wish we had stuck with oak due to the hardness factor. and loving the color but they are not very easy to maintain in family homes. Get our monthly DIY Digest in your inbox. The finer the grit, the smoother the finish, and the less surface texture for stain to sit in- ergo less color. I may do something with some blue glaze to help neutralize the yellow but well see. I have read you can bleach red Oak but dont know how labor-intensive that is I was told my original 1930s floor could not be refinished So picked white oak which I prefer but then a different refinisher said yes they can be refinished. This bed frame was built with a variety of white woods (spruce, pine, or fir). This is excellent! Yours Truly, A very satisfied and intrigued reader :). Sad face. Want to do what we do? If nothing else, looking through our list may help you identify what elements of a stain you like and dont like. . Birch did surprisingly well and the oaks were naturals. This just confirms my hatred for oak. Great post idea. Im having a pine table made, but I dont love any of those stains. I do wish we could take it further :) I have a half dozen (or more) cans of Minwax! :D Thanks for the comparison so useful!! I just want stained, modern looking doors. Continued good luck ! Im going to try the simply white on white oak. This experiment has been a great help! Tough to know! Thank you for posting this! Thank you again for all the time you put into keeping the general public informed. Ultimately, I think Ill need to coordinate a color so that I can leave the inside of the cabinets gold, which suggests black to me. The use of this site is an acceptance of the Dunn Lumber Terms and Conditions. Thank you. My red oak banister, spindles, stairs and floors are currently stained Provincial. This is so great that you are partnering with Minwax. :). The color Early American in general reminds me of the Provincial stain color, although with a little more warmth in it. The desire to make a custom stain came from trying to match the stain from a store-bought piece of furniture. In the gas pipe storage solution, the stain is applied to Doug fir. The wood types we chose also are vastly different, ranging from extremely soft (birch) to hard (red oak) with undertones all over the map. You should really check out Invisble by Loba. Another way for us to stay in touch! We refinished and extended our original hardwood floors and there were gross dark stains on the original floors which didnt sand out. Now, the faux wood floors have tones of walnut and the counter tops are white and Im trying to do my shelves in something that will go with all the different tones but not be too matchy-matchy. I just sent them an example photo of something I like, but didnt specify a stain. ???? needlepoint box To me, Gunstockis another good middle-of-the-road stain. and test out the stain first. The red oak brr nightmares of 1980s cabinets and heart cutout furniture. I have an old 90s red oak dining table and Id like to go for the PotteryBarn Seadrift color. Thank you so much. Thank you. We are building a house and trying to choose stains for maple cabinets and pine beams and French doors. We did provincial stain lightened 50%. Great post! more expensive) and there was some improvement. And it makesa great gift! However since the top gets plenty of use I put on a coat of varathene. Would the stain obscure more of the grain if left on more than 2 minutes? When working with maple or birch, you usually leave the stain on longer to achieve a darker result. All of the wood types accepted the stain well, except the non-conditioned Birch side. I am getting ready to refinish a dresser and the Simply White is the look Im going for. 3. However, going really light has some appeal, too, but I can just envision that dingy gold coming through! Same. After reading so much about poplar being homely, I thought it would behave closer to pine. I had to comment because I am standing in front of the stain display at Lowes and I am trying to pick a stain. White Oak cant take a bad picture. In addition to being beautiful, Ingrid is really durable we have three kids, and we always have a home construction project going on. Really! LOVE this postvery helpful!! Darn! In the process of building a house and the trim color really has me struggling. Hi! I really appreciate the effort put into this and the comparisons are really useful. 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. Maybe Jacobean. Such useful info! Thank you for sharing! Thoughts? Im afraid of having the oil based turn simply white on white oak any bit of amber or golden. You might need a little help searching, huh? Thanks! We let the conditioner penetrate for 15 minutes and then wiped off any excess and removed the tape and got to work applying 6 different stains to all five of our types of wood. Cabot makes a good one, and you can get it from Lowes. Anyway, it is so informative and so incredibly helpful. The first one is Minwax Wood Finish Penetrating Wood Stain that you mention in your article. However, it does seem that the difference in color is more noticeable with lighter stain once you get into the darker colors, they seem much more similar. You could even paint it a contrasting color! Seriously though, I came here looking for some ideas of which wood to use and which stain and now its even harder to decide what I want to do. You can compare this with the Provincial stain on the six-pack holder and see a slight difference. Same with hinges. I want to thank you for your testing it was just what I needed. Right now. Dang- wish I had seen/used your wood stain tips! Still, I know that being able to visualize the stain in my space is the key for me. Hi, I have sanded an old pine dresser that was coated years ago in an orangy shellac. It is an elusive stain!! Especially learning about the wood conditioner. Thanks for sharing! formId: '5d839e061f3845000f2e624c', Thank you so much for this article. You can also layer stain colors, so you can always play around with a darker color on top of what you have! Theyre not bad and look nice but not my color of choice. Thats why today, Im sharing a guide I put together that showcases photos from the projects weve made over the years in different settings, with different stains, and using different wood species. I wanted a grayish brown. Infact, the grain in some of the boards take on a blue/gray colour. Hi, I Am searching for best stain for cedar fence. Thanks for this post! ), so I just stuck to four colors: I also wanted to show off the wood accelerators, and those are: Note: All of the photos below are straight out of my camera. Really awesome post! Were a couple of homebodies, working to uncover the home our home wants to be. Similar quality, but less prone to the orangey tones because it has more of a yellow undertone that works with the yellow undertones of white wood. But, then I came back down to reality and the truth of the matter isin []. At Dunn Lumber, for the Varathane stain products, youll notice that we have stain samples on a couple different wood species to help you get a more accurate visualization. And were so happy to have you here. We have been using Pickled Oak on a ton of projects lately. I used Minwax Pickled Oak and it turned out gorgeous, for a first attempt. I was wondering how the oak would look with a stain now I have a better idea! Useful helpful post. Other wood possibility is oak. Gorgeous! I didnt know they made a white stain, I want to try it! I had never used a pre-stain conditioner and also wanted to see the denefit of doing so. This is very helpful and well organized, thank you! They look incredible. I had to decide quickly (insert problem) for selecting a stain and was not used to staining any type of cedar and made the mistake of teak (color choice). Ive done several wood projects, but I was considering using birch plywood for the first time. Any help would be appreciated. Its so hard to decide!! It's the perfect, practical way to add the warmth of wood to all the rooms of your home. Any insight on how the gold would affect the stain color? Varathanes Natural stain is the lightest in their selection. Was about to get a bunch of milled pine moulding to stain dark walnut, but now Im leaning towards the white oak the stain really brings out the grain in the oak. At first I was planning on pine because its cheaperjust not sure which stain to usethen I thought I would spend a little more and get red oaknow I have come here and Im not sure if I want poplar, white oak, or red oak. :). Help! This DIY vertical planter is the perfect solution for small-space dwellers looking to grow a garden. Youll notice with this stain that the effect on different wood species is less pronounced than the previous stain. PLEASE WATER MARK YOUR PHOTOS SO I CAN FIND THE PROPER SOURCE! Which stain on which wood do you think is closest to West Elms pecan, like the pecan legs of their Drake sofa? I thought the pickled looked nice too. One thing I think that people (including myself!) I was really impressed with it! The top flat surfaces were a disaster, but the legs cleaned up just fine and have a lovely patina. Minwax Simply White. It dries quick and doesnt yellow! Hi! Have you found one color stain that makes them similar? Or a sort of gray stain that would really cut the yellow could work! Going to bookmark it or future reference. Although, no red came through with the pine at all. The shoe storage bench and the umbrella holder are both made with white woods, and the vertical shoe rack uses a combination of cedar and poplar. This is the type of post I love since I learn from it and wouldnt want to put the $ into it myself. 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. My favorite black paint is Limousine Leather by Behr! one i have used cuprinol dries to s shine. We hope this guide helps you pick the right stain (or none at all) for your next project! The pine looks SO MUCH better with the conditioner. Thanks a lot for all the help! :D I hated every single stain on both oaks! Thanks for sharing. So Dark Walnut it probably is and Ill save the white/light colored floors for my next house! No wonder white oak is the HG of wood flooring. And though it might look even color toned, I would attribute that more to the editing of the photo. Im also learning a lot from the feedback responses. This is an awesome resource, thank you! For other wood projects, check out our bartop finish table, outdoor beverage cart, or DIY outdoor cook station. Just let them sit for 30-60 minutes and youll achieve exactly the effect shown below! I just wanted to say thank you so much for taking the time to do this. Nealjust curious.what stain are you going with for an A&C piece? ), Red Oak (too dark) and Red Chestnut (too red). This is a great example of the color difference between brands. Ive been seeking for good stain for my bedroom pine furniture. Poplar and red oak both have strong undertones that can affect the coloring of the stain, so its something to keep in mind if youre working with either of those! Using on pallet wood, probably pine as yellow seems prominent. It turned out a very neutral, medium brown colour. Without being in the space we cant really say, but one thing I would do is find a piece of red oak that matches the finish of your banister etc. I dont think it will work as well over stain, since it reacts with the wood itself), but it may help. In the red oak, it made the board look very pink! This is so helpful!! Thanks again. I've taught myself how to make simple updates to help make my house a home, and I want to show you how to do it, too. Appreciate your help :). 2. Do you know how Chestnut stains? SO SO SO SOOOO helpful!!! And I bet youll never guess Red Oaks undertones. From left to right, youll see: common pine, select pine, poplar, and red oak. I have a bit of a dilemma in that I have white oak floors in my newly renovated kitchen and original red Oak from 1930 on the rest of my main floor. All I can say is that you deserve a Nobel Prize for providing the in-depth analysis and commentary on the various woods and stain options. <3, Thank you SO much for this post!! Really appreciated it you could totally make a series out of it! Ive noticed in our new house that some of the pine woodwork is more yellow than others. This was the best article on staining I have ever seen. Ive been researching for weeks and driving myself nuts with my white oak choice. A few key tips you can walk away from this post with? formId: '5d839cbe8ab47e000f14432c', Im not a fan of grey but Im thinking if I sand off the varathene, would weathered oak tone down the orange????? This is sososo helpful! Even when you dont want to rip down a wall, you can make that space in your home better. Its not too dark or too light, too warm or too cool. Thanks for that. Similar to choosing paint colors, stain samples on a website can look different from pictures on the can, and both can look different from reality! Birch is similarly light in color, but with a cooler undertone. This is a warm color, similar in some ways to Summer Oak. Im not sure how (or if it is even possible) to achieve the color I want. Where with pine (except heart pine), its softness accepts stain quickly and often unevenly, which is why conditioner is so important to use before staining many softwoods. Perhaps I should apply a double coat of Provincial to the stairs and floors to make it all match? Some of my cabinet uppers have fluted glass, and the thought of staining everything inside the cabinet, too, has my head spinning! Looks like it could pass for walnut at a glance, especially with the unconditioned side looking like wood grain. Im considering using a dark stain, which will work better with the stone counter top color. :). We have really loved putting it everywhere in our house. This post was super interesting! These dont have poly on them. Is that weird? 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. Great article one of the very best Ive seen on the effects of Minwax stains on different woods. The other three projects (the display case shelf, desktop organizer,andairplane swing) that are stained in Provincial are white wood or SPFa mixture of spruce, pine, and fir. Edward / Chicago. Wood conditioner is certainly key (learned that the hard way). simply the best thing Ive seen on how various stains work on various woods Thank you for doing this. 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. Minwax Golden Pecan. 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. The photos are so nice. Any more questions about staining? Get more details on these and how they work on this post right here! I loved this. My husband and my new contractor think Im nuts. Should I layer a bit of white and with a gray that I wipe off quickly? Available in 70 kid-friendly, pet-friendly fabrics, this line was created with families in mind. Do you have any recommendations? I really would like to cool down the warm undertones some, and I am wondering- do you think more coats of the white would do that? You guys did a fantastic job with this. My best guess is about $30 less coming out of my pocket which will cover door hinges, door pulls and the shelf pins.. Most definitely as long as theyre the same type (oil or water base, preferably same brand). Ive only used it once on this chalkboard calendar (on Doug fir), but I absolutely adore it for this project. And the second one is General Finishes Oil Base Gel Stain I read about in this article https://woodimprove.com/best-wood-stains/#product1. It wont make a huge difference on something like oak, but when youre working with pine it can mean the difference between an uneven finish and a really smooth one. Its not even like its a huge price difference! It can be applied over any wood but is especially necessary when working with soft or porous woods like pine, alder, birch, and maple. Very helpful post!! Clad with durable textured thermofoils, this line is compatible with Sektion, Akurum, Godmorgon, and Besta cabinets from IKEA. Guys this is SUPER helpful! Thank you SO much for doing this! I would have really liked to see a gray stain used as well. The bed frame and the nightstands are both Doug fir, and the lanterns are hemlock. In the past, if what I stained was too intense, I mixed a little light grey paint with lots of water, brushed it over the stained wood, then wiped it off. But I hope this is helpful. If your floor is going to look blotchy, damaged, or like a wild animal skin, better to not even refinish. I am mid-century-modern by design and a touch of industrial (the concrete floor). Yes, this is my childhood home. We recent had a fireplace mantle done in Red Oak and were afraid to stain it. Thank you for this helpful post! Thanks! I was also thinking it wasnt sanded. Ex: contractors squatting in my back room at night, appliances stolen (we were in a motel for 9 months) problems with pouring concrete flooring, broken pipes under the foundation and last but not least, the City of Houston. I am sanding a 18C vanity unit that is Chestnut. Id love more in-depth stain experiments. 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. Dont forget to thoroughly sand. I think my blocks got mixed up on this picture from left to right you have: select pine, poplar, red oak, and then the common pine. With that in mind, I decided that to help you all out, I would put together a collection of photos from the projects weve made over the years in different settings, with different stains, and using different wood species. Thank you for this post! I love this! 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. containerEl: document.querySelector('#fd-form-5d839cbe8ab47e000f14432c') Ft. of 4/4 and 10 Bd. So always thoroughly stir your stain!). This is super helpful! I love DIY and furniture painting, but never did staining before. Prep- if you sand wood, the grit that you finish at will dramatically change how much stain is absorbed. thank you for showing me how to stain my red oak cabinets. Do you have tips for re-staining newly nailed western red cedar shingles? Have a green thumb but nowhere to flex it? Its interesting because on White Oak, in our experience, the color is much lighter than what is shown in your post. Thank you so much for doing this post. 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. We applied it then wiped it off after about 2 minutes. Thank you for taking the time to do it. this post has disappeared. The unconditioned Birch side, again, struggled with accepting the stain, but you can also see the conditioned side of each board is slightly darker. The cherry does not show where any of the doors are. They look blotchy and uneven in some spots, but what bothers me more is the really darker areas and even black. Im going to give it a try. Thanks for the information. The Douglas fir has a orange tent I need to tone down. Everything turns red! I think this is due to a yellow undertone in those wood species, becauseon the birch midcentury litter box, you can see a different result. Using wood conditioner prior to staining a cheaper wood like pine can make a really, really big difference! !function(d,s,id){var e, p = /^http:/.test(d.location) ? We put pine floors in last year and I stained them with a colour called Special Walnut from minwax. And yes, the prestain saves the day on birch. Its the best jumping-off point for design, no matter your interior style. So, mix gray and brown, and thats exactly what you get! Probably because we are getting ready to choose a stain for floors in the house we have been renovating. I really like this post and would love to see another post just like it, but with different woods and stains. There is not much worse than putting on the wrong stain, especially if you are working with dark ones. I bet this would be true for furniture refinishing too! We have rustic birch floors and they are quite soft, they took a beating to upstairs, moderate use. This is a very interesting stain that has resulted in two vastly different end products. Best practice would be to get a piece of walnut and do some tests. I bought silver-toned door hardware for the painting gray side and antique brass for the side I want to stain. Im going to need approximately 20 Bd. I have been exploring the idea of staining my maple cabinets.