@carii thank you for sharing your lovely kitchen, I would never have found Space.Theory without this thread! We're now getting a quote from them, too. I am also in Marin County and we're going through this same process of pricing out all our options for a very similar look to your kitchen. Would you mind sharing the information of the custom cabinet maker you got your quote from with the Shinnoki veneers? Thank you! Jess

Omega.

HU, it means "A pigment containing white lead", It actually dates back centuries when people used liming wax to treat wood and furniture to keep insects away. As of now it means, "filling the grain w/a liming wax or white paint without tinting the wood" The grain is deeper than the surrounding wood surface so the pigment fills in. the trick is sealing off the wood portion without sealing up the grain. an alcohol/shellac mixture is used on the wood to prevent it from absorbing the white, but it still leaves the grain open. I use an analine dye on raw wood, and then the shellac mixture. then the liming wax. then it's buffed so that it looks like this

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.