That pale wood trend isn't going anywhere. There are a number of ways you can lighten darker pieces of wooden furniture with excellent results and I have used quite a few! In this blog I'll be concentrating on how to achieve it with the use of water based stains which, in my opinion, are one of the easiest and best way to achieve that lighter look.
I'm starting with oak but remember that the finish of your piece will alter depending on the type of wood you're working with. Can you believe this is the same piece?
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Ideally you want to strip your furniture first so that you're working with raw wood. This allows your product to soak into the grain rather than sit on top of an existing finish. You can either sand or use chemical stripper to remove an old finish. If the piece is waxed the method to strip that is slightly different. I have a video which explains this in more detail which you can view here.
For this vintage bureau I chose to sand.
As you can see, the dark finish is sanding off to reveal a much lighter wood underneath. I often get asked about my sanding system. I use a Festool sander and dust extractor. For more details about my sanding system you can watch a short video here.
I also did some hand sanding for the areas my electric sander was too large to reach like on the legs.
You may think that once you've sanded the dark finish off, you could topcoat that raw wood and you're done. Technically you could. However, what you will probably find is that the tone of the wood will alter significantly once your topcoat is applied. It will usually turn the wood slightly darker and depending on the wood, more orange or red toned.
To stop that from happening you need to cancel out those tones coming back. This is where the stain comes in. For my projects I use Dixie Belle's water based wood stain and the shade I used for this bureau is 'Au Naturel'.
I usually lightly mist the surface of the furniture before applying thin layers of the water based stain with the direction of the grain. Work in small areas so that your stain doesn't dry before you've had chance to smooth it out. I use an applicator pad to apply the stain. The stain is buildable meaning you can apply more layers for greater coverage depending on the desired outcome. For this bureau I applied two thin coats, allowing to dry thoroughly in between.
Once the stain has dried completely (I usually leave mine overnight) then you can apply your chosen topcoat. For this project I used Clear Coat in satin and applied with a blue sponge for a streak free finish.
I also added a pop of colour on the inside using Silk Mineral Paint in the shade Tide Pool.
This piece was waxed so I stripped that first. I cleaned and sanded as before. Pine has a tendency to look orange so in order to cancel out the orange tones, I used the same product but a slightly different shade.
This shade is called Fireside Ash and has cooler undertones which help eliminate the orange. In this picture, I had applied one thin coat of Fireside Ash on the left vs the raw pine on the right. You can see how much it alters the look of the pine wood.
Here's a close up of the finished top. I applied two thin coats of stain in total and sealed with Best Dang Wax in Clear. You still get all the characteristics of the woodgrain but without those dated orange tones.
I used Collard Greens Chalk Mineral Paint on the bottom half of this cupboard for a unique paint and wood stain combination.
I also have videos of these makeovers that you may find helpful!
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