Expert: Eileen Cronk - 10/5/2007

Question
We purchased oak doors for our kitchen and stain them in a Red mahogany, we've applied several coats of varnish, they look awsome but when we got them into the kitchen to install we noticed that some of the cupboard doors are a brown rather than a red. I asked the person who built the cupboards and he thought stain probally wasn't stirred enough during the application. I need a solution to fix my cupboards so that they all look somewhat the same. Do you have any suggestions on how to fix this problem without having to buy more doors? I wondered about stripping the doors down that are different but they're are so many curves on the face of the door I'm not sure how to get that all sanded out and if I'll actually be able to get it stripped enough that when I reapply the stain that it will actually take!
Thanks in advance for any solutions.

Answer
Hi Kathy
Nice to hear from you.
Oh I am sorry you have this problem. It now makes more work.
The person who built the cupboards could be correct, but my thought is its just the wood. Every piece of wood takes a stain differently. In order to be totally the same, all the doors would have to be cut from the same tree and I doubt this was the case.
Also you give me a clue when you said the doors are more brown than red. This suggests to me that they were older wood. Perfectly acceptable to do this and your carpenter made no mistake.
Whatever the cause, there is only one way to fix the problem.
The offending doors will need a complete stripping with paint and varnish remover.
You need have no fear about the new staining taking, as the wood will have nothing on it after stripping to prevent the stain from taking.
The only problem I see, is after stripping the doors will still have some color from the previous stain. Its just the way it happens. The wood absorbs it, and the only way to get the wood back to like new is by using bleach.
Like you say, sanding would be awful.
But lets get the doors stripped first and see how much color remains..it may come totally off, who knows.
When you are ready to stain, you must experiment first with a bit of stain to make sure the color is acceptable.
Perhaps on the back of a door.
Personally I think some stain color mixing will be in order.
If you are using Red mahogany, try adding a few drops of dark mahogany to it. Just take a teaspoon of the red and a few drops of the dark not your whole can LOL.
Then test.
If thats wrong, another Tsp. of the red with a bit of perhaps red cedar as an example.
You will have to see the stain charts and pick something in the dark reddish tones.
So you see Kathy the staining will be trial and error till you are happy with the color.
I wish I was there to help you LOL..its hard explaining this by writing.
PLEASE get back to me if this is not 100% clear.
I would much rather you ask before you make a mistake.
Kindest Regards
Eileen
PS an afterthought.
If I'm correct about one wood being more aged than the other, perhaps time will correct the problem...might save some work to live with them as is for a while.