Victoriajane, I love your house, it's beautiful! kec01, thank you so much for posting that link, it's amazingly helpful. Victoriajane, we have a 1898 home, not as fancy as yours, but I've been hemming and hawing on colors as well. Our small stained glass is similar in color to yours, our larger one (will put photo below)is similar in that the dominant colors are flipped. Most Victorian colors were earth-toned, but with that, I think in the 1890's it was really almost anything goes, so it gives you a bit more licence to do what you'd really like. I would suggest sitting with paint swatches right by the window and pick 4 that you really love that go with each other. I second slateberry's drabby color suggestions and would put those with the right "feel" of light- read lucy's warm- cool suggestion, next to the appropriate windows. Then would maybe "pop" the dining room and/or parlor with brighter jewel tones. For the wall around our larger stained glass in the hall, I wanted a warm neutral (yellow-brown) to pick up the yellow light that comes through the window, also to make the cooler blue and cooler pink to pop. Here's what I have (forgive the quick paint job, I am indecisive with paint and need to live with it a bit before committing): the paint color is SW stonebriar (which is close to BM Shelburne Buff, also close but yellower is Chestertown Buff): In our livingroom, I wanted something deeper but classic and neutral enough to go with my red velvet and gold brocade victorian furniture. I think I'm going with SW Bunglehouse Grey- it's a arts and crafts color, but since that's an offshoot of Victorian, I'm not too concerned. That's close to BM Kingsport Grey and BM Nantucket Grey. It's actually not at all grey, despite the photos: Again, please forgive the lousy paint job, it's not the way it will look! Let us know what you choose, I'm still totally undecided about the dining room and would love to hear what direction you went in!

"Plywood and solid wood often take color differently. And there are individual variances in the wood itself. (Is this what you're experiencing?)" Yes - yes - yes! I have 3.5" fluted oak trim that is the biggest problem. It runs vertically at the seam and the corners atop plinth blocks. These pieces not only are very different from pc to pc, but within a single pc ( after staining) Most of the problem is the fluted trim seems to have white oak within the pieces and neither the stains nor the waterlox is giving a consistent shade of color. I understand wood is different and I actually like that natural variation, but the yellow/ green vs amber thing is very ugly. DH wants me to waterlox the entire bar according to your directions, then deal with the fluted trims pcs after we see how it all looks. I absolutely Love the Waterlox!!! Thank you so much. The Bar rail is going to look spectacular just using the Waterlox. So, my question is: should I proceed using only the Waterlox everywhere, then try to add some stain/dye where needed on the fluted trim to try to blend the shades? Removing the trim is not an option. I tried to get the Jeff Jewitt book you quoted today - no luck yet. I appreciate any of your comments or recommendations.

Well, here is how this came to be. We are adding on to an existing staircase. We took a picket and part of the old hand rail to have more milled. They told me the wood was cherry and milled 150 pickets with handrails. Later found out the existing was red birch, not happy that a mill yard wouldn't have got this right in the first place. The pickets were not sanded well AT ALL and they wouldn't fix those for us. When we stained a couple of those they were blotchy. We took those to an amish man who sanded them nicely and then we stained them to match the existing staircase....beautiful. The handrails seemed to be sanded well, not like the pickets. So, I went over them lightly with 220 grit before staining. As far as I knew they seemed to feel and look like the pickets were before staining so I assumed they would come out the same. I did have a sample piece of the cherry handrail and I did test it out, it looked great. I thought I was on the right track. I understand leaving the cherry on it's own would be beautiful, but that was not an option because of the existing staircase. I am going to try the mineral spirits as suggested. I have 5 long pieces of handrail left to stain. Any suggestions for prepping better on these to try to prevent some blotching would be appreciated.

Many woods do not take dark stains well. The only way to truly get dark cabinets with no hint of the natural grain is to paint them. Or choose a wood with more of an open grain that stains more evenly such as cherry or oak. What you are terming "blotches" is the natural grain of the wood and is not a defect at all. There are some areas that look as though the topcoat was misapplied and those should be corrected. When compared with typical "custom" cabinets that aren't factory finished, your cabinets are 95% fine, and you are just in that stage where you notice every little natural variation and hyper fixate on it.