Can you post photos? It may actually look just fine - but the fact that it's not an exact match may be putting you off? In other words, I'm envisioning your fireplace as now being complementary to your furniture, instead of looking completely off, as you may be seeing it right now.

You might have to use that stain that is part stain part paint.

Others here are experts at this.

I would ask a cabinet shop. All woods take stain differently. Some stains will make some woods turn green so I would ask a cabinet shop, many of which nowadays use poplar, and see how they get the color. Poplar is a good wood, but just different from the elegant cherry and maple. It holds up well to all kinds of conditions.

The real problem is with the wood. Poplar wood will never look like maple or cherry wood. If you use the same stain on pine, oak, maple, cherry and poplar...they will all look different. It is due to the characteristics of the wood.

If the intent was for the fireplace to match the furniture, then the same wood should have been purchased. Your husband's desire to save $$$ was a fatal mistake.

You are just going to have to settle for a stain that looks good to you.

Popular is difficult and tricky to stain because the wood adsorbs the stain differently in certain areas. It's mostly used make furniture, moldings etc, that are going to painted...however, it's doable.
There is two ways to proceed...the long way is to apply boiled linseed oil to the popular and wait 3 to 5 days for it to dry before applying the stain, (the waiting time is essential) or the faster method is to apply a light stain like golden oak to seal the popular then and wipe off the oak stain and wait a couple of hours before applying the darker stain...

If you choose the faster method, here's what to do...

First you need to apply minwax golden oak to seal the popular... wipe it on, let it set, then wipe off.

Then try mixing minwax provincial ( It has a reddish hue) with minwax golden oak. Start off tryng 4 parts provincial to 1 part golden oak, and see if you like it, if you want it more red, then try adding some cherry stain. Before I stain any final pieces, I mix small amounts of different stains in paper cups (with the formulas written down on paper under the cups) Use table spoons to measure out your stain.
Always apply your sample stains on scrap wood, until you achieve the color you want.
I will get you samples of furniture we made out of popular and successfully stained to match our existing furniture.
Once you get the stain color you want and stain your piece, I'll tell you how to finish the piece for a professional look.

Joann.

Have you tried gel stain? It covers thicker and leaves a deeper colour. Also, try other reddish colours like mahogany. I've stained lots of different wood to match other pieces or just to get a certain look I like, and I've found that using several colours gives a deep rich look. I often start with a really dark colour like Min wax's Jacobean and then add the colour I want (cherry or mahogany for a red, or American colonial for that golden glow). Don't give up.

You can also buy wood conditioner that is made for tight grained woods like maple or ash (poplar) that helps them to accept stain evenly. I would really recommend you do this first other wise even if you get the colour right it will go on blotchy.

Although it won't make it match with the furniture, using wood conditioner is a good idea so that the stain is absorbed more evenly.

It can be done, but you'll have to experiment.

I had my carpenter build me a mantel at my last house. I had intended to paint it, so he used poplar, maple, and this weird rubber stuff for one of the arches.

Then I changed my mind. (Shocking, right?) I had to fiddle with a few gel stains, but I finally got the combination I wanted and the stain color came out beautifully.

Since you're trying to match some furniture, you may have to "tweak" your formulas a bit to find just the right combination.

Well -- for a darker brown finish -- try mixing Minwax Polyshades in Walnut and their Mahogany stains. Might be the answer.

Another way MIGHT be to simply paint the fireplace ..... maybe in black? Then add black items around the room -- perhaps lamps, photo frames etc.

Just some thoughts!! :)

You can get an exact match, and yes you can get it to look like cherry.
We made these curios out of popular, and I got an exact match with my existing furniture. You need to seal the wood first with the boiled linseed oil, or for a faster method you can seal it with a light stain like golden oak. I sealed these curios and our mantle room divider, and all our mantle windows with golden oak first. When we built our kitchen cabinets we used the boiled linseed oil method.

premier, your advise is all wet, it can be made to look exactly like cherry. We've made lots of furniture pieces from popular. We've also made chairs from quarter sawn white oak and stained then to match my existing cherry kitchen chairs...Anything can be done with the desire to do so!

popular curios

close up of popular mantle and popular curio.

Popular mantle, I think you get the idea, first experiment with different color stains on scrap wood to get your desired color.
As I stated before, once you stain you piece I'll help you with the final finish.
Joann

"premier, your advise is all wet, it can be made to look exactly like cherry."

LOL You stained your wood with a cherry stain but your stained wood doesn't look like it is cherry wood. You have overlooked the characteristics and grain of the wood. Perhaps you should tell Minwax that they are all wet also.

Cherry is a type of wood.

Cherry is also the name of a dark stain that is close in hue to the color of a black cherry.

Thank you Jen. Yes, sometimes people want to match a cherry stain, and not necessarily cherry wood.

The OP never said anything about wanting the grains to match. She's trying to match the color.

Joann, I consider you to be the resident expert on this type of thing. The photos you post of your woodworking are always gorgeous.

Joann, did you also make the stained glass window? So very pretty - everything!

Sanborn, have you tried Minwax Waterbased Stains? They have a much greater variety of shades. That's how we matched out kitchen cabinets that are maple with our woodwork which is clear pine. We choose the clear pine since it's closest in look to our maple cabs because around here maple is hard to come by in the quantity we needed. We searched high and low of every brand availble of oil based until we'd pretty much gave up when I realized we hadn't tried water based stains. One of the first two we tried matched perfectly! And our cabinet manufacturers uses a 14 step process. HA ! I think they just want you to buy their moldings prefinished at outragious prices.
Check this link and see if there's anything that looks close. Home Depot carries them. The waterbased poly is a bit more expensive, but you can use oil based over them.

Here is a link that might be useful: Minwax Waterbased Stain Colors

Cliff&Joan, amazing. I knew it could be done because the shutter shop I use does cherry shutters from poplar and a cabinet shop that is repeatedly lauded for their beautiful cabinets here, uses poplar for some which they stain and paint.

premier,
Your original chastising post, advising the OP that her husbands desire to save $$$ was a fatal mistake, as well as her having to settle for something that just looks good to her, was and is -- all wet...

Seems like you have the need to have the last word, but that's fine with me...all the savvy members of this form are well aware that if it wasn't for bad advise, and snarky remarks, some posters would not be able to post at all!
Joann

Jen, yes that was our first piece, so it has sentimental value. since that piece, I've gotten much better at designing windows. This is our second piece with our cherry stained poplar mantle!
Disclaimer ... This is not real cherry !!!LOL

Patricia, popular wood is a lovely wood and as I stated before, tricky to stain, however it can be stained to look like cherry, or stained to match any existing furniture stain...the secret is to seal the wood first with boiled linseed oil or a light stain.

I do all the finishing of our furniture and when we made our kitchen cabinets out of quarter sawn white oak, I had sleepless nights worrying about the finish on them. I knew we could built nice cabinets, but I worried about the stain as oak has the dark soft spots that takes the stain differently (much darker) and I didn't want that, that's when I discovered boiled linseed oil. Makes the stain application go on evenly on oak, without the characteristic
dark cathedrals -- staining darker (although quarter sawn oak doesn't have the cathedrals is does have some darker areas.

I ignore you know who's posts because they're always stated so...well to borrow a term..."snarky"...they lose their value when the rudeness outweighs the advice. Unfortunate.

Frustratingly, the balance of the thread usually then has some responses/reactions to the rudely phrased remarks and I become aware of them anyway. At some point I think this may stop as people get tired of playing along. Time will tell.

Ugh...well, anywho...

I would definitely say it looks like Joann knows darn well what she's talking about. Gorgeous.

I'll be looking for your before & after shots. I'm trying to build up the nerve to tackle a bedroom suite.

"Now here is what I think is the problem. MY DH and FC used poplar for the wood. DH said he didn't want to spend the $$$ on cherry so he thought this would look closest to the wood."

The OP stated that she thought the wood was the problem and that her husband purchased it to save $$$.

I agreed with her. Since when is agreeing with the OP chastising?

I adore poplar, it's my favorite wood--unfinished, its multi colors range from a light blond to green to dark streaks of grain that are brownish-gray, often in the same piece of wood.
My guess is that because of the underlying green color to the wood, a red stain will gray or brown out more than might be expected because of the way red and green behave when mixed. You might have to go much redder than you think is necessary in order to compensate. Try it on a test piece, of course.

I can't offer any help here, but I am thinking that perhaps it would be better in the long run if the fireplace DOESN'T match the bedroom set exactly. Seems like the fireplace would lose some of the impact if it ends up looking like just another piece of furniture in the room.

Is your trim in the room painted or stained? If painted, what about painting the fireplace in the trim color?

Joann: I love your woodwork--it's is just fantastic! Would you mind posting more pictures of the room with the curios? Thanks.

Thanks Kittykitty, I tried today to take photos of the Living room cause we just made new drapes a couple of weeks ago. I am going for the British Colonial look and think I achieved it with our new chenille drapes. However, the sun is so much lower this time of year the room is too bright for the color of the drapes to show up, when I shoot the windows. Here is a photo I took earlier this morning, it shows some of the drapes.

I'm sure the members of this forum have already seen this chair. I picked it up at goodwill, stripped it, refinished the wood (it was blond wood) and we re-upholstered it in this warm brownish gold chenille.(re-upholstering is a hobby of ours) We made the footstool to match, using the bottom of my mothers coffee table form the 1950's.
The throw pillows we made as well. I won the vintage piece of tapestry from ebay and made a pillow from it.

We just re-upholstered this chair as well. I bought this chair in 1973 it was covered in a brown velor and I loved it...About three years ago we covered it in a gold velor, it looked nice, but I missed the chocolate brown, so we decided to do it again...This time we changed the chair, omitted the skirt and cut a wood front between the legs to match the wing chair and stained the legs the same color. Also the original chair and the first re-upholstery job had a semi- attached tufted cushion...this time we made a regular tufted back and I like it much better. The chair looks very different since it's upholstery job. This brown fabric has
a lot of life, it's so pretty in person.

here is the side of the goodwill chair...

Here's my two cents worth. I have cherry laminate flooring. When I got new bathroom and hall cabinets, I wanted the cabinets color to match as close as possible to the flooring. The cabinets are made of alder. So when the cabinets were made I told the cabinet makers I would stain the cabinets.

Before I chose the stain, I took a sample of the cherry laminate with me to the store and held it up to the minwax stain chart and found the Vermont Maple to be the closest in color. The water based stain is harder to work with than oil based stain because it dries quicker, but it is also easier clean up.

I used minwax waterbased wood conditioner on the cabinets before I stained them, and then I used minwax Vermont maple stain. The Vermont Maple stain has a red tone in it and it looks great. I also have fir and pine solid wood doors I wanted to try and match to the cherry laminate. I again used the same two minwax products with great success. I did the same with some quarter round and baseboard moldings. I find the wood conditioner does help the various woods to accept the stain in a more even manner.

The grains are not similar, but the overall tone of the rooms is pleasing because there aren't too many different wood colors in the same room. You have to get up real close to see the differences in the grain.

Hope this helps.

Joann--

Great pictures and woodwork!

Joan - the woodwork and furniture is really gorgeous! So rich looking.

I agree about not needing to have the fireplace match.

You all amaze me!!!! Cliff&Joan thank you so much for the advice. As I stated in my post, the color of my furniture matches the color splotch on the minwax color chart. It is soooo close to the cherry & red oak color. The cherry oil stain came out beige. And the red oak came out a dark brown. I tried mixing some together and all it did was come out a lighter brown.
I need to get more of a red. I will experiment today. Thanks for all this information, I feel so much better about this and I think I can do this.

I agree with Les and Cattknap. I think it might look better if it was stained a complimentary color but not match the furniture exactly. Good luck with it, Sanborn5!

CliffandJoann, your work is AMAZING! So many gorgeous pieces! Thank you for the eye candy!

Instead of going back to HD where I bought the min wax I went to my local paint store. They were great. Suggested a different stain (ZAR I think) and said they were not big fans of min wax. The cherry color ws close, they added a few drops of my red oak from min wax and it is close to perfect. Very pleased with the results. Thanks for all the help and advice.