Does anyone gel stain their cabinets anymore?

6 years ago

This was a big deal several years ago but seems to have faded in popularity. Is this because painted cabinets became the rage?

DD and her hubby bought a production built house a few years ago, The house is now 16 yo and the cabinets are showing wear at high use areas. DD did install handles on the cabinets so that has helped slow the wear process.

The real issue is that the cabinets are very orangy red toned. They are wanting to replace the flooring with wood look LVP but are having a hard time finding a floor that looks nice with their cabinet color.

Thoughts on a gel stain color, paint color or other ways to make this work?

I will attach a pic in the first comment since it seems as if posting in this one won't work.

Featured Answer

gracie01 zone5 SW of Chicago

6 years ago

I had the opposite problem; birch cabinets with reddish oak floors. I used mahogany to warm up the brown birch cabinets. You would want a color w/o red tones. I did brushed it on and wiped off excess. Never regretted it.

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Comments (6)

RNmomof2 zone 5
Original Author
6 years ago

You can see some wear on the right hand cabinet
Debbie Laird
6 years ago
I haven’t yet, but plan to. Heading to a local woodworking shop this week where a salesman has agreed to help me find a brown, in highly recommended General Finishes brand, to cover my orange sliding doors and window frame.
RNmomof2 zone 5 thanked Debbie Laird
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RNmomof2 zone 5
Original Author
6 years ago
Debbie, does your wood look like their cabinets? I would be interested to hear what someone tells you to do. We may try heading to a woodworking store also.
Debbie Laird
6 years ago
The woods are similar for the most part. Mine does not have exposed grain either. The salesman asked me to bring in a piece of wood to be stained and he would help me figure out what color I needed to coordinate with our new floor. There is something about the current finish being water based or oil based.

I don’t believe the product is available in big box store. I had to search for General Finishes to find a dealer.
RNmomof2 zone 5 thanked Debbie Laird
RNmomof2 zone 5
Original Author
6 years ago
Silly me! There is more grain to her cabinets then I remembered! They have oak cabinets. So....that changes the story somewhat on painting them

We went to Rockler yesterday with a drawer front. The man there applied Walnut and Java to the back of it. The Walnut just as mu DD said "freshened it up" it really didn't changed the color much. The Java darken the grain but not much of the wood. We had not sanded at the drawer front at all and feel that if we had the stains would have penetrated all of the wood.

She(we ;-) ) will most like;y stain with the Java. Will post pictures when that happens.