It’s a small picture. Just a corner of a magazine page. Our client likes the look of the cabinet pictured here.
Brenda went to work. The colours needed to be tweaked to fit the palette in the rest of the kitchen. It appeared we might be able to use our overglaze process with the right shades to get this effect. But after several attempts Brenda knew she had to try a different approach.
We Almost Never Use Oil Products
I have to add the “almost” here. It’s very rare that we use any oil products. We like the low odour and easy clean up of water-based products.
We are adamant in our belief that oil-based gel stains are not a good solution to overglaze the Golden Oak cabinet finishes so common here in Kansas City. Gel stain, like all oil-base stains, is intended to soak in to unfinished wood. There are no binders in oil-base stains. When you stain your lacquer finished cabinets you run the risk of adhesion problems. Believe me, you don’t want to find out a year from now that your new finish comes off with a minor scrape.
Stain Over Paint
There’s a big difference, however, when you use oil stain over paint. As long as you do the prep work needed, paint will stick. And even the best paint is porous. You may have discovered this fact by accidentally spilling something like wine on a painted surface.
Chalk paint has the wonderful properties of sticking like crazy to whatever you paint and being porous. Brenda thought it was worth a try. Chalk paint comes in standard colours. So Brenda started mixing a little of this with some of that to get the grey she needed.
Success
She left it to dry overnight and then went to work with gel stain and Turpentine. She was pleased with the results. The combination of chalk paint and oil, gel-stain gave her the ability to move the colour around in ways a water-based glaze would not allow. The stain will adhere well to the chalk paint. We’ll have the option to finish it with either wax or our go-to water-base topcoat. Either way, this finish will be as durable as it is beautiful.
Of course we will add this to all of the other choices we offer to refinish kitchen cabinets in the Kansas City area. There are still a lot of Golden Oak kitchens out there.
