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Please Help! Pics of dark stained oak cabinets?

14 years ago

Hi everyone! I love dark woods and want to stain my cabinets dark, but am so afraid that my kitchen might look dark and gloomy. Our walls are painted with a brushed pearl paint by Valspar (Lowes). The color is "Cocoa Swirl" and it looks awesome. Sorry, I get side-tracked very easily lol..back to cabs. Can you please show me your dark stained "oak" cabinets?

Thank you so much!

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Comments (11)

biochem101
14 years ago
Hi! I don't *think* oak stains very dark usually??? It tends to be a lighter wood. Oak has a very prominent grain and if it's used that's what people like/want to see.

There haven't been many people doing oak kitchens around here in awhile.

You might want to check out the kitchens in the Finished Kitchen Blog, under categories, look for Cabinet Wood - Oak.

It says there are 26 of them. But as you see, they are mostly 2006 and earlier. I'll try to put the link here.

Here is a link that might be useful: FKB Oak Cabinet Kitchens
3katz4me
14 years ago
Mine are very dark quartersawn oak - in the FKB link above.
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We are in the process of painting our oak cabinets now. I can post pics later (when I'm not at work) if you are interested. We are doing the work ourselves. LIke the previous posters have said, it is time consuming. We bought a house in foreclosure and gutted the kitchen. I found great cabinets, in a horrible pickled oak finish, at restore. There is some great advice on this forum, and we also found a good article on painting cabinets on the this old house magazine website. Here is the process we are using: (1) removed all doors and hardware--you have to fill in holes if you are changing hinges or knob position. (2) rub down with liquid sander/deglosser. This cleans and roughs up the finish. (3) Sand with 100 grit paper, vacuum, and wipe down with mineral spirits or tack cloth. Seems duplicative of step 2, but this what was recommended to us so we did it. (3) Fill in grain, and fill dents. We used thinned down MH ready patch and applied with a paint brush. This was much less expensive than Brushing Putty and filled the grain well, but not perfectly. (4) Sand with 220 grit paper, vacuum, and wipe down with mineral spirits or tack cloth. (5) Prime (we used instl-x stix, which was expensive and I don't think it worked as well as the much less expensive kilz or zinzer primers (6) Sand again with 220 grit paper, vacuum, and wipe down with mineral spirits or tack cloth. (7) Caulk all gaps on doors and frames. We found we had to sand a bit again after this step, which meant more vacuuming and cleaning. (8) Paint--we are using Ace Cabinet and Trim (we couldn't find cabinet coat in our area). This paint is good at concealing brush strokes, but does not coat as well as some other paints and takes FOREVER to dry. Not sure I would use again. (9) Sand(again!!) with 220 grit paper, vacuum, and wipe down with mineral spirits or tack cloth (10) Paint final coat. (11) let cure (about one week). (12) reattach hardware and hang We just finished step 8. So I am not sure if two coats of paint is going to be enough. Started step one two weeks ago, and we probably have another ten days to go with the sanding, painting, and curing still to go. Not a quick process by any means. Good luck.
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susanlynn2012
14 years ago
gibby3000, your kitchen is stunning and very rich looking with the dark tiles offset by the pretty light tiles that really look great. Thanks for sharing.
celticmoon
14 years ago
Two years ago I darkened my 20 year old ones. Very bright room:

Finally getting around to flooring - I'm thinking swirly cork. Just might make the FKB one of these years!

Here is a link that might be useful: celtic's oak facelift
robin_d
14 years ago
Mine are dark oak as well, and I still love them. They hide coffee dribbles very well! ;-)

Here is a link that might be useful: My Amost Mostly Finished Budget Craftsman Kitchen
toomuchstuph
14 years ago
I was just surfing the Gallery section here and came across this gorgeous kitchen!

Here is a link that might be useful: Daki's finished kitchen in oak
ccoombs1
14 years ago
Oak does stain quite easily and is gorgeous dark! Mine is not as dark as I originally planned....I wanted them espresso colored but was talked out of it by family. They are still dark though, and I really like them.
clean_freak
14 years ago
My favorite dark oak kitchen is a favorite here on the kitchen forum as well. It's Bosche's Lacanche kitchen with rift-sawn white oak cabinets stained very dark. Love it, love it, love it.

Here is a link that might be useful: Lacanche kitchen
mrs_mom3
Original Author
14 years ago
Wow! Thank you all so much for responding. All of the kitchens above are beautiful! I'm not concerned any more..I'm going full speed ahead..hehe What would we do without this website...I love it!! I can't wait to post my finished project photos.
okpokesfan
14 years ago
ccoombs1: Are you cabinets a brand or custom? If a brand, what with what "stain". If custom, what stain coor did you use? I just ordered KM oak cabinets and I'm hoping they turn out to look like yours. Gorgeous!
ccoombs1
14 years ago
Thank you! They are custom. The cabinet guy said the stain color is English Chestnut. He left me a small can for touch-ups. The can says M.L. Campbell Woodsong II and below that it says WS2 B10 Med-Solids Stain Base.

Hope that helps!

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