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Rift White Oak Cabinet Stain

Anjelic Gumruyan

last year

Hello! I’ve been trying to search past discussions about cabinet staining but can’t seem to find a solution for my situation. I asked for rift sawn white oak cabinets from my carpenter and I wasn’t expecting this color. Unfortunately I am not in touch with him anymore and wanted to know if I can apply a new stain directly or would I have to use a specific solution to strip the cabinets from their current stain before I can re-stain them?

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Comments (2)

PRO
User
last year
last modified: last year
It is fine. Leave it alone. You got what you asked for.

Stain is applied to bare wood. That isn’t bare wood. You would have to completely strip that and start over to do something else. Way too much work to pay for, or DIY, if you have never done anything like that. Easier and chesper to start with paying for an all new vanity if you want different.
zuleikad
last year
Yes, you need to remove the finish coat (which is probably polyurethane) before you can stain them another color. This will probably remove some of the color of the stain depending how the cabinet was stained and what it was stained with and how you remove it.

You have a couple options to remove the finish. 1) You can use a chemical stripper like Citristrip. 2) You can sand the doors by hand (Don't use a power sander of any kind! You're not trying to take of six layers of paint or remove any of the wood.) 3) You may be able to take the doors and drawer fronts to be dipped. A company will soak them in a vat of chemical stripper. It's expensive, but can be worth it for pieces with lots of edges, nooks and crannies that will hold up to it. Then you use a chemical stripper on the frame.

For that vanity, #1 is absolutely your best choice. #2 is also reasonable. #3 isn't worth it for something with such straight lines.

If you're trying to get the color out, too, that's a whole additional process. If not, and you just want them darker, you can stain them.

Doing something like this yourself isn't "hard," but it does take skill and practice. Getting them an exact color is very challenging and you have no test pieces. It also involves a lot of labor and time.

You can hire a furniture re-finisher to do it for you. But they are not going to guarantee you an exact color. If you're very particular about the color you want, it still might turn out greyer or redder or something you don't want.
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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.
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Linelle: your description perfectly captures the difference between my sample and what I'm looking for! My sample is flat and lifeless. What I want is for the wood to look rich and alive. The example I chose may be red oak. I know white oak can be just as lively as red oak though. There are plenty of QS white oak photos that look rich and full of figure. It's the rift white oak that I cannot find good photos of! ILoveRed: I have seen the photo of the tall cabinets in the first kitchen and it is gorgeous! It doesn't show the detail of the wood as clearly as I need but I'll add it to my photos. The second kitchen you found has some really good photos. Thanks so much for finding that for me! omelet: I'm not an expert either but I agree with you - the cut determines the figure of the wood more than the finish. But take a look at the figure on the unstained backside of my sample door: Unstained, it has a lot of wonderful richness and unexpected fleck in too. If they didn't leave the backside unstained I would have never known that RS white oak could look so lively and have such lovely figure. In one of my other threads, we seem to have figured out that they used a mix of woods and cuts on this sample door. The side rails look like RS white oak, top and bottom rails QS white oak and center panel is plain sawn red oak. That's a fantastic suggestion to post on the flooring forum! Off I go...
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I'm cross posting this from the kitchen forum in the hopes of getting help from you wood experts here on the Flooring forum. :) If anyone would be so kind as to share your photos of stained rift sawn white oak, I'd be so appreciative! I'd like to gather a collection of photos to show my cabinet maker to help me describe what I want. I'm not totally happy with the door sample I got from my cabinet maker (see photos below). I really like the colour of the stain but I don't like how opaque it is because it totally masks all the figure of the wood (the medullary ray flecks and natural shimmer of the wood) and I hate how the stain darkened the grain so dramatically. I do like to see the grain, but not with so much contrast to the surrounding wood. The unstained backside of the door has wonderful figure, with a beautiful shimmer to the wood and lots of little medullary ray flecks. Here's a photo (note that it appears they used a mix of QS white oak, RS white oak and plain sawn red oak to construct the door): Here is an example of the rich, lively finish I would like for my cabinets: This was the best photo I could find. All the other photos I found were blurry, didn't have enough resolution to show the detail of the wood, or were of QS vs RS oak. QS oak is very popular but it's terribly difficult to find photos of RS white oak. Please help! I need more photos of stained RS oak that show the detail of the wood.
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i'm wondering why you're here at this stage in the game? everything is installed, knobs are in , bacsplash is almost done. As soon as they brought those into the house you should have said "stop". this is not what I wanted. In no world do these match your sample. didn't the cabinet maker give you a complete, finished sample door? This is what they're supposed to do to make sure you like the finished result. (and because they did not, how can you be held responsible? You picked a stain sample on some other piece that's been sitting around their shop that doesn't even have the rails and stiles. You should have asked to see a FULLY FINISHED door. It's the fault of the GC and the person supplying the cabs. ) They aren't horrendous, but they aren't a high end white oak either. So, what to do? depends on how much you like or dislike them. To restain the veneer after a clear coat has been applied, (I'm assuming a clear coat WAS applied)? is PIA. the clear coat needs to be stripped, sanded, and then a darker stain applied to match the solid wood. Who made these and stained them??? At no time did they think this two tone was maybe 'incorrect' ?? I don't know what you paid for those wood cabs (painted ones are fine) but if you're going to keep them I'd get a steep discount. Or, just have them start over and make you new ones.
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