old cabinet, new look

I realized yesterday that perhaps I should have named my blog "I Hate Oak". I think it mostly stems from having a house filled with ugly, dark oak. Every cabinet, shelf, door, bit of woodwork, and even two rooms with paneling, were covered with it. Our house was virtually a cave with few windows and everything dark and dank. I think this is why we immediately knew we would have painted white cabinets in our new kitchen. Luckily the only bit we have left is our yet-to-be-done laundry room. Here is the current sample of the gloriousness that is was our cabinets throughout the house.


With all of the redecorating in our living room I had another little piece I wanted to include. It is a cabinet/table that D made in High School. Unfortunately it was oak... with its heavy grain, bland color and all. So I decided to restain it. I had gotten a gel stain from Home Depot to test on the drawer front. I grabbed my favorite little palm sander and sanded it down to remove the original stain. I started with the new color and realized there was no difference in color. Fail. I went back to Home Depot and got another, darker color. After 3 coats of the new color there was still hardly a change in color. Another fail.

Then last week, while reading a post from another blogger that had a similar dilemma, I realized that mixing some leftover paint with clear glaze paint would be the perfect covering. It brings a nice rich color and, unlike stain, covers the heavy grain.

So off I went with a new plan...As you can see in the before picture, I had already removed the knob and tried the gel stain attempts.


I had hoped to get it similar in color to our game cabinet. I took the darkest paint we had - Chocolate Coco by Behr. It had been used in our powder room and there was plenty left for this project. I also bought a quart of clear glaze from my local Ace. Using a 4:1 ratio of glaze to paint, I mixed it up in an old glass pasta jar. Perfect!

Then using a sponge brush I put on 2 coats of the glaze mix, being sure to sand lightly between coats. Afterward, I sprayed with 2 coats of satin polyurethane. Using some leftover gloss black spray paint, I gave new life to some old hardware we already had (although I am not sure I love the black hardware on this piece). The only cost was the $7 quart of glaze!

Here it is in its new home.... but I am seriously considering making it my new bedside table.