I used the custom tinted stain I purchased. On the initial application, the color appeared darker and I was impressed on its coverage. The next day the color seemed to have faded. I brought a stained panel from the basement and held it against an old cabinet door. Maybe I should have put another coat on. I then went into the laundry room and made a comparison between the new stain and the stain I used on these doors. The stain was definitely darker. I was satisfied that one coat should be suffice.
Time to assemble the doors and drawer fronts…
I was just about ready to assemble the doors and drawer fronts when I decided to just verify the stain color on the finished project. I brought up a door panel and frame, put them together and placed them into the cabinet opening. I stared at it for a moment, took a deep sigh and said out loud, “I should have put on two coats of stain.” Earlier in the week when I applied my first coat of polyurethane, I noticed my white wiping cloth was getting brown. I knew at the time I was wiping off some of the surface stain. I did not stop and just finished one panel to check the color. I continued and applied three coats of poly on all the parts. And my once perfectly matched finish was now too light.
I decided to re-sand all the components and re-stain and refinish them all. However, I would just refinish the fronts of the doors. There was no way to hide this error. These cabinets were a part of the kitchen and on full display. I had to fix it even though it was one more week of an unfinished project in the house. We had family visiting on Christmas Day, but I had time to get them done.
Well, with the delay in getting another stain to match the cabinets, the doors were not installed before Christmas. On Christmas day, Rethguadym, my daughter, asked, “What’s with the new look?” I knew I was in for some sarcasm.