Master Bathroom Cabinet Staining Pics

[luv2rn4fun]

I'm finally getting to this.  Here are the before and after pictures from our Master Bathroom project.

Before:

Attachment Deleted

After:

Attachment Deleted

We stained the cabinets, changed the hardware on the drawers, new light, made a mirror framed out of molding wood and stained it, new faucets, new robe hook (not pictured), and new towel rack (not pictured).  It came out really well...we both like it a lot and are glad we spent the time doing it even if it did take forever!

The downstairs bathroom was done but we were not happy with the final product because we had a similar light as pictured and we had painted the cabinets white with grey paint.  We brought down white lamp shades from our guest/kids bathroom and decided we need to change out the light.  It's on it's way...will update when DH gets that installed.

[miamigirl]

Love it!!

We did a similar mirror frame with molding and it turned out great.

Good job

[luv2rn4fun]

Apr 18, 2014 13:14:29 GMT -5 jjwritergirl said:

I love it! How well did it work to stain the main cabinet inside with little ventilation?

Thanks!  It wasn't too bad...one night we did it way too close to bedtime and we definitely should not have slept in there that night (but we did).  Other nights we did not notice any effects.  It isn't recommend during pregnancy though...it states that very clearly on the product label.

[bk1]

It looks amazing!!

[awick14]

It looks awesome!

[melsamoony]

Omg that looks so good! Great job.

[HoneySpider]

Looks great!

[luv2rn4fun]

Apr 18, 2014 13:48:45 GMT -5 jjwritergirl said:

Apr 18, 2014 13:20:18 GMT -5 luv2rn4fun said:

Thanks!  It wasn't too bad...one night we did it way too close to bedtime and we definitely should not have slept in there that night (but we did).  Other nights we did not notice any effects.  It isn't recommend during pregnancy though...it states that very clearly on the product label.

Sorry, one more question. Did you sand all the old stain off first, or did you use a stripper, or did you skip both of those and just stain on top of the old varnish?

No worries, ask away!  The instructions (DH found a couple blogs) were to quickly sand (we used 220 grit sand paper), really just a rough up.  It took about an hour for the vanity and all the doors/drawers.  The old stain was definitely not stripped.

The stain we used was from General Finishes (you can buy it on Amazon, it's not sold in Home Depot etc) and it's a gel stain (so it can go over everything).  We used Java.  It took about 4 coats but could have been done in 3 coats (we didn't put enough on the first coat).  We also put 3 coats of a clear coat/protectant on.  We started with Satin but would have preferred the Flat (Satin was too shiny). 

For the staining, you need at least 48 hours of dry time between coats.  The clear coat can be done every 12 hours (we did 24 for the most part).  Also the great thing about this stain is that we were able to use latex gloves and old white socks to apply (no paint brush, etc).  I do recommend having lots of old socks though because they weren't really re-usable.  We did our best to stain all drawers, doors, and vanity to help save time and socks!

[D2M]

Wow, looks really high-end! Nice job!

(These are the sex cabinets, right?)

[luv2rn4fun]

Apr 18, 2014 14:00:40 GMT -5 jjwritergirl said:

luv2rn4fun Thank you! I am going to bookmark this thread in my home renovations folder so I have the name of the product saved. We are big do it ourselves type of people and anticipate needing to re-do all the wood in whatever home we eventually buy.

Do you mind me asking approximately how much you spent for the project you showed here?

You should definitely keep this in mind.  It wasn't too bad, just time consuming and most of that was because of dry time.  It literally took us about 4 weeks and I'm not sure we could have done it much faster.  We setup the doors/drawers on our dining room table so we ate at our coffee table for a good 2 months (still are actually because DH is now painting another frame for our kids bathroom...that will be done this weekend though!).

That said, I am so glad our kitchen is liveable because I would not want to have to do this on something that big.

Stain- $20
Clear coat- $30
Latex Gloves- $5
Wood for Frame- $50
Faucets- $300
Light- $100
Robe Hook- $20
Double Towel Rack- $40

Total- $565

Oh, and DH spent about $250 on a Miter Saw!  But he needed that for future projects as well!

[luv2rn4fun]

Apr 18, 2014 14:13:07 GMT -5 jjwritergirl said:

Apr 18, 2014 14:03:23 GMT -5 D2M said:

Wow, looks really high-end! Nice job!

(These are the sex cabinets, right?)

Glad you pointed this out. I will need to remember this crucial step when I do ours. It seems to yield good results.

Yes D2M!  These are the sex cabinets!

jjwritergirl- wrong bathroom...the downstairs yielded our good results!   Actually it was DH's friend (whose wife is pregnant) wanting to come over that got us to where we are today (DH decided we needed to hibernate in case they actually stopped by!)...win, win!!!

But yes, sex before staining makes it SOOOO much better!  It should be part of the instructions...Step 1- Sex; Step 2- Wipe down cabinets; Step 3- Stir Stain etc etc

[katiek]

This looks awesome!

[MrsAggie]

Looks great! Dd you use the gel stain? I used that from some posts I found on the Internet to refinish some oak dressers. Still holding up beautifully!

[estrellita]

I like!

[luv2rn4fun]

Apr 18, 2014 17:49:15 GMT -5 MrsAggie said:

Looks great! Dd you use the gel stain? I used that from some posts I found on the Internet to refinish some oak dressers. Still holding up beautifully!

Yes we did!  Glad to hear your's are holding up beautifully!

[MrsMB]

luv2rn4fun LOVE LOVE LOVE what you did! It looks great!!

[christy082]

Apr 18, 2014 13:56:37 GMT -5 luv2rn4fun said:

Apr 18, 2014 13:48:45 GMT -5 jjwritergirl said:

Sorry, one more question. Did you sand all the old stain off first, or did you use a stripper, or did you skip both of those and just stain on top of the old varnish?

No worries, ask away!  The instructions (DH found a couple blogs) were to quickly sand (we used 220 grit sand paper), really just a rough up.  It took about an hour for the vanity and all the doors/drawers.  The old stain was definitely not stripped.

The stain we used was from General Finishes (you can buy it on Amazon, it's not sold in Home Depot etc) and it's a gel stain (so it can go over everything).  We used Java.  It took about 4 coats but could have been done in 3 coats (we didn't put enough on the first coat).  We also put 3 coats of a clear coat/protectant on.  We started with Satin but would have preferred the Flat (Satin was too shiny). 

For the staining, you need at least 48 hours of dry time between coats.  The clear coat can be done every 12 hours (we did 24 for the most part).  Also the great thing about this stain is that we were able to use latex gloves and old white socks to apply (no paint brush, etc).  I do recommend having lots of old socks though because they weren't really re-usable.  We did our best to stain all drawers, doors, and vanity to help save time and socks!

It turned out awesome!  We did this exact technique with the Java stain on our master bath last year and I love it.

jjwritergirl, this is the link to the blog we followed for the technique, if you are interested. The only thing we did differently is that we used foam brushes for everything, not the sock method used on the blog. 

[Blue Moon]

It looks great! Our guest bath looks very similar to your original pic, and I would love to do something like this one day.

[tiptoetulips]

Looks great!

[winecheery]

omg it looks so rich! Well done

[elliemonster21]

Goooooorg!

[wanderingenough]

That looks great! Nice job!

[Deleted]

Apr 18, 2014 13:07:05 GMT -5 luv2rn4fun said:

I'm finally getting to this.  Here are the before and after pictures from our Master Bathroom project.

How did you "frame" the mirror?  Did you take the mirror down to do so?

[luv2rn4fun]

Apr 21, 2014 9:57:16 GMT -5 vigurl said:

Apr 18, 2014 13:07:05 GMT -5 luv2rn4fun said:

I'm finally getting to this.  Here are the before and after pictures from our Master Bathroom project.

How did you "frame" the mirror?  Did you take the mirror down to do so?

My DH did this part (I did the staining).  He measured so he would know how much wood he would need (we ended up needing 3 pieces of molding wood).  Bought the wood in the crown molding type section at Home Depot.

He measure the bottom/top first and then calculated how much he would need for the sides.  He cut 45 degree angles using a miter saw.  All four pieces come together to make a frame.

The mirror stayed up the entire time.  After all the staining was done (front and back because you can see some of the back in the mirror), we glued it with Hard as Nails all purpose glue.  We had to place some weights to really get it to adhere to the mirror.

Oh, and sanded the wood before staining.

There are some blogs/youtube videos on how to do this.  I believe that's where DH got the idea.  It really is pretty simple if you have the right kind of saw (although he did do this one with a miter box and hack saw...the other two bathrooms were done with the powerful miter saw).