# stain over varnished oak cabinets



## shovel (Jun 9, 2009)

major problem stripped varnished oak kitchen cabinets to bare oak. Stained them again with darker stain then varathaned them, looked good. The doors and drawers were off, stained them and varathaned them in garage. (set up benches) Now here is the problem, the doors are alot darker, alot darker then cabinets. Same amount of coats. Doors are real oak, the cabinets are combination of oak plywood and real oak. Now the kitchen looks terrible, I mean terrible. What is my easy way out of this one.? I know i stripped them before to bare oak and that was right they to do but am I gonna have to strip either doors or cabinets again? Please help!!!


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## waynec (Feb 17, 2009)

There are only 2 ways I can think of. First you can strip either doors or boxes whichever would be the easiest to match to the other. Second, there is a possibility that you could sand the boxes with 220 and use a gel stain to darken them to match the doors. Then clearcoat.


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## vandyandsons (Dec 23, 2008)

-you can try the gel stain option
-you can tint your varnish to match the cabinets and re-do the doors. you can only darken this way, you cannot lighten.


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## NAV (Sep 5, 2008)

Or you can make a starnish for the lighter colored cabinets. It is not really recommended but it works. 

mix your stain with your varnish. then just apply it to the lighter colored sealed wood until you get the color you need. you may have to mix different combination of stain and varnish to get to the color you want but it beats stripping anything again.

I would not count on that customer being a repeat customer. get them to sign some type of certificate of satisfaction, get the check, run to the bank and cash it. 

the only real problem with a starnish is that if it chips you loose color with the sheen. 

good luck, i am full of ghetto painting tricks for all applications.

oh, i guess the guy before me posted the same thing. see it will work.


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