Waterlox is not a penetrating oil, It is a wiping varnish. The reason they say it must be applied to bare wood is to sell more product. I've used linseed oil or dewaxed shellac as a seal coat before Waterlox, and I've used Waterlox as the seal coat (as per the mfg. directions) If you put Waterlox on bare wood, it soaks up about 4 times more product than the next coats (and takes forever to dry.) At that rate I could not afford to use it on my whole house, either! But if you use it only as topcoats, the product really goes pretty far. Waterlox will not adhere properly to lacquer, wax, or water-based undercoats. For your refinishing project, I think you are on the right track. Sand the existing finish to promote adhesion, brush on one good coating of the Zinsser seal coat shellac straight out of the can. let it dry a day before sanding it and giving it a coat of Waterlox. One final coat of Waterlox the following day is all you need. Perform a test on one area before you do the whole stairs. Let the stairs dry 2-3 days with fans running to speed cure time. Do not walk on the stairs until they are cured properly.

Hi there everyone! I just found this forum last night while I was searching online for some cabinet reviews. I wish I would have found this months ago.......or even a year ago!! We are in the middle of a complete kitchen redo. The kitchen has been gutted and we are stuck on our cabinet choice. Our old house had a medium stained maple cabinet with dark glazing and distressing and we had pine plank flooring. The kitchen was very open and received quite a bit of light with higher ceilings. Although it was a lot of wood, it didn't seem dark and we liked it. Our new home however has lower ceilings, isn't an open floor plan (although the dining area is attached to the kitchen, but not open to the great room if that makes sense) and doesn't get as much natural light as our old kitchen. We did install the same flooring as our old house so it's a medium colored pine plank flooring. My husband wouldn't mind having the same wood cabinets but I'm thinking it will just be too dark so we are exploring other options. I've been searching and searching for kitchens for months now and I am drawn immediately to white kitchens while looking.......like a French country look......not contemporary. We have distressed furniture in the dining area and I don't think the contemporary look will blend well with the style of our home. If anyone on here has a French country type kitchen with white or off-white cabinets would you mind sharing a pic with me please? We are stuck with trying to decide between glaze or no-glaze and distressing/no distressing. I also will have some questions about the layout of our kitchen but I'm trying to get a drawing made up to post before I do that. Thanks so much in advance for your help!!

Hi Stretchad, there is a post on this forum titled "Any regrets choosing dark hardwood floors?" posted by peemps -- it is long, but toward the end there are photos of dark and dark --pretty look. I found a link by searching "classic kitchens dark hardwood" on Google.

They should have larger sample sizes, so that you can at least put them by a large counter sample, large cabinet door sample, etc. If you can, take them around to different lighting in store or even outside in natural daylight. Careful carrying those quartz or granite samples around though, they are heavy suckers! The lighting in our design centre was pretty bad - made everything look very, very warm, so it was good to move around. LVP certainly is a good option if you are concerned about water. Laminate is okay with small amounts of water as long as you clean it up right away (leaks from dishwashers are another thing, etc), but I can understand with kids and dogs you can't guarantee this! If you go LVP do make sure you get a higher wear layer though with that kind of traffic and wear. 20 mil even at least (40 mil is the highest so far, I think, but it can go all the way down to 4 mil or something which will not last long at all). It is not terrible not to know what your style is, but it would be worth spending some time today and tonight with your partner looking for inspiration photos of what you are attracted to and what not, or even going to some parade homes tonight together (even if from other builders!). We had some general ideas of what we liked before we went in (and some "absolutely not's"), but nothing as specific as showing up with a photo in hand saying "we want THIS kitchen!". This came from looking at various parade homes, spec homes, browsing here, and elsewhere on the internet. For example, we knew we wanted white cabinets and a cleaner more minimalist look for our small kitchen, but wanted an overall "warm" feel to things, picking up from a Scandinavian influence of white combined with warmer wood tones. The interior designer was good at helping us narrow things down from our preferences. For our kitchen for example we ended up with a white cabinet as desired (Alabaster shakers), a warmer white/gray quartz that has brown flecks in it (Caesarstone Bianco Drift), white paint (SW Heron Plume), and a warm blond laminate flooring (Kraus Crossroads Journey) to bring in that warm wood element. I picked out some pendants with a third party lighting store that have a Scandinavian influence. I have yet to see it altogether, but I think ultimately we made good choices. The end result is not going to be what really what I think of as Scandinavian kitchen, but it has the elements we wanted in there and plan to add more of the warmer wood with furniture, cutting boards, etc. I also ended up with more gray than I expected (in counter and backsplash) but it was what appealed to me most in combination with other choices, like the cabinets and flooring. I find I need contrast! We will have complimentary tile in our entry/baths/laundry, and the treads on stairs as well as second floor will be carpet. I just can't seem to break away from the coziness of carpet in bedrooms and such (and I appreciate it in our climate too). You will have so many decisions to make tomorrow (like grout colour) so just take your time :)