The skinny on stain

Saturday | 22:46

Shop the latest yellow skinny jeans on the world's largest fashion site.. Are you loving pastel skinny jeans as much as I am? I've been seeing them everywhere and I just had to have a pair! I had this pair of dark jeans that someone gave me.. The skinny on stain

The skinny on stain

I reckon there is an underlying dread of wood stain. For Halloween, I’m thinking of dressing up as a can of Minwax Antique Walnut and terrorizing all the local flea markets/boutique vendors/furniture restorers I can find.

Kidding…obviously.

But seriously how often do we see a stained piece on a link party?

Like nearly never.

I know that painting furniture is well loved right now and I admit I delight in how much simpler it can be.

But when I walk into PB or Ethan Allen or any other established furniture store I don’t see a ton of painted pieces.

Eventually the trend of painting furniture will end…maybe soon, maybe in 50 years, but I reckon it’s excellent to know how to satin so we can make a variety of pieces.

When restoring a piece with the intent to stain, it does require more work to prep and stain can be a small more unpredictable with the look of the final product. Stain requires patience, but the outcome can be stunning.

Via

Via

Via

Before I started 551 East, most of the work I did was wedding presents for friends and most of it was stained. In no way do I deliberate myself an expert on the subject but I have learned a few things that I want to share with you to help take some of the stigma away from staining.

For me, one of the greatest frustrations of culture to stain was that I felt like every step was trial and error. I’d try it one way and then another and another till somewhere along the way I got it right.

And then found this AMAZING article- “How to Stain Wood Furniture” from TLC. I urge this 100%. It takes you step by step through the refinishing process with fantastic tips, tutorials and information.

I highly urge you to take a look at it even if you don’t do or plot on doing a lot of work with stain. It’s got fantastic tips on sanding a prepping a piece for any kind of end you’re plotting on using.

And here are a few of my personal tips. :)

1. How to take out stain from your skin -

Stain is nasty stuff sometimes if you get in on your hands. As it dries, it becomes stickier and stickier. Soap doesn’t do a fantastic job of cleaning it off, but canola oil does. Use it like soap and when once the stain is removed use fixed soap to wash the surplus oil away.

2. Applying stain -

If you want to use a brush, buy a feature brush. Cheap brushes leave a trail of lose hair and if you leave a hair on the go up while it dries it can be nearly impossible to take out it without sanding. If you try to go back and pick them out while the stain is still damp, you will probably need to do some touch ups which can lead to an inconsistant color on your go up. With stain, you don’t want to do repeat coats until the before coat is 100% dry. I urge using foam brushes. They do absorb stain, so you might end up wasting a small of it, but I’ve always gotten better results. Or a clean, lint free cloth can also work really well.

3. Less is more-

It is SO much simpler to add another coat of stain to deepen the color than to take a layer off if the color is too bold. You may end up doing coats (upward of 4 or 5) to get the color you want, but by applying the stain in thin even coats you run less of a chance messing up.

4. Stains come in LOTS of colors-

I reckon there is a myth that if you choose to stain a piece you are stuck with a shade of brown. FALSE! Minwax (and other brands) have a lot of color options.

5. It’s a small simpler to go darker than lighter-

If you don’t take out all of the unfilled stain from a piece and then stain over it, the result can be splotchy. That’s why if you chose a stain a shade darker than the original it can help mitigate for any traces of the unfilled stain left behind.

Hope this helps! Pleased nearly weekend!

PS If I show up at your door on Halloween in fact dressed as a can of Minwax Antique Walnut please pretend to be frightened.

Humor me just a small OK? :)