I'm trying to do my floors a deep brown/espresso and am having a lot of trouble finding the right balance. I've used some dyes (Lockwood) and then a layer of jacobean minwax but it often comes out either too red, too black, or otherwise flat. Any suggestions for how to do get a rich, dark brown with stains? Thanks in advance.

I am glad to hear the feedback that the procedure worked. It has been over a year and everything is holding up great. I went down to Home depot and bought thin aluminum angle iron and sanded it to make it look like brushed nickel 1 inch X inch � mitered the edges and trimmed the bottom of the cabinets. Ill post pictures � it looks awesome. I even had my house appraised and the appraiser added the value of the cabinets as brand new as all of the other models in the neighborhood have oak cabinets. Anyways to answer your question, and I am not a wood expert I just posted my procedure because it worked for my application and saved a lot of money and steps that the "pros" would suggest What I found is that the pores in the wood will absorb paint in my naked/unfinished cabinets thus requiring primer. Originally I premiered one of my bathroom cabinets and the primer seemed to create a rough surface and fill in the wood grain. It turned out just okay. I finally took oak door in my kitchen and tested it without the primer but sand down the glaze on the door. I didn�t get crazy with it I just hit it with the rotary sander, sanded the detail with the sanding sponge, cleaned and painted. I then compared the door primed and not primed and found that the not primed looked significant better and more wood like, meaning it was hard to tell it was painted. And a year in a half later the paint has held up to usually kitchen ware and tear. So to answer your question what I would do is take a door and prime the back and not the front then paint both and compare � whichever one turns out better go with it. But in my opinion if you knock off the glaze and paint following my procedure you will find that this will be more wood like with fewer steps involved with great results. Tom

I'm going to paint my bedroom and I was hoping to use EK paint. The room is not that big (maybe 11x13) and has one window (about 35"x72"h). The window faces north/west and since the backyard is covered with trees the light that comes through the window is diffused through the leaves so it looks greenish and the walls have a greenish cast. I put up some swatches of buttercream and luminaire but they have an odd green cast from the trees. I dislike the color green so I don't want to paint my room that color. I love trees, I just don't like green paint. The room will have a bed, a small dresser, and a Pottery Barn club chair in espresso brown leather. The floor is an old wood parquet in a light golden oak. We don't currently have a rug. We don't have bedding either. Normally I would just paint the room tan but the rest of my house is tan, so I'm a little tired of it. I was originally thinking that I'd paint the room a light color like lavender mist, but DH just informed me that our club chair has be moved to the bedroom. So now I'm stumped on a color for the walls. Part of me is thinking of a red shade, but I want the room to be calming since I may have a baby in there with me in another year or so. I am really stumped. Do you have any suggestions for a color? I'm open to other brands of paint, but I put up EK paint in my foyer and I just love the glowiness of it. EK is the only local full spectrum paint here.

sorry to say i am not a fan of any of those granites, but if i had to pick one, i would pick the one without any red specks or red/pink/peach/gray undertones. i would get the one that read "earthy" the most...browns, creams, gold and some black, but not gray. i would do everything i could to go and pick out my own slab b/c i wouldn't want to be disappointed when it came to be installed. you are going to have a pre-conceived notion of what its going to look like and if it doesn't, you are not going to be happy. i know that's how i would feel. maybe if you don't need a full slab, you can use a remnant and it might fall into your budget..try anything to pick it out yourself, you will be much happier.. HTH :)