Expert: Eileen Cronk - 8/7/2007

Question
QUESTION: I am in the process of staining 6 panel pine doors.  My wife and I had stain from a previous project that we liked, but we forgot that project was for oak not pine.  Thus the color was not the same.  My WIFE wants to start over on the doors (restain), we have not put any varnish on them and we just stained them yesterday.  What steps do we need to take to remove the stain (oil based).

ANSWER: Hi Kyle
Nice to hear from you.
Removing stain from pine is almost impossible.
You could first try some paint stripper. This will take a small bit of it out.
Then agressive sanding...what a job.
Now the only hope I see is if you stained the doors a light color and now want them dark.. Then you could just apply a darker color over top of what you now have.
Sorry this has happened.
Regards
Eileen



---------- FOLLOW-UP ----------

QUESTION: Thanks for your follow up, fortunately she wants to go from a maple color to a walnut, so hopefully it will work.  I am assuming I should still try to take as much of the color out as possible right?  Or can I just put the new color stain right over the old one?

Answer
Hi again Kyle
Personally I would not try to remove any of the first color.
Thank goodness you want to go from lighter to darker though.
The mistake made with the first application was not doing a test area first.
A good spot on a new wood door is the top or bottom edges.
So make sure you do this with the next color.
And let it dry before deciding if its correct.
Personally I feel the walnut will be a bit too dark in this case and I would mix the old color and the new color half and half. Once again the test area.
And just a teaspoon of each color will give enough for a test. You can always go darker you can't go lighter so keep that in mind.
Good Luck
And a great question
Regards
Eileen