Outdated To Outstanding Golden Oak Cabinets

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by Hometalk Recommends
10 Materials
$15
2 Hours
Easy

Hi, I'm Rhonda, and today I’m going to show you a super cool trick that I found to update your golden oak or honey oak cabinets without painting! I know you've all got 'em. These dated oak cabinets that were very popular in the 80's and 90's but today...not so much icon

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The technique I'm going to show you today is called toning and it doesn’t require any stripping or painting! Toning changes the tone of your cabinets by applying a coat of stain mix over your existing cabinets. It'll bring out the natural grain of the wood while beautifully darkening the color of your cabinets.

I am going to show you this technique on a lighter pickled oak cabinet. You might have these in darker or lighter tones, but I'm sure you recognize these cabinets in some form or another. And...it's time for these guys to go!


Today I'm using General Finishes water based wood stain in Espresso, and the General Finishes High Performance water based top coat. Espresso is a dark color that I love and is very popular right now, but if you'd like to go lighter, the General Finishes stains come in lots of colors.

Mix 1 part stain to 1 part top coat (in a 1:1 ratio). I like to mix well in these disposable plastic containers with lids, because the mixture stays a long time if you keep it sealed tightly.

I also like to add some paint extender which will delay the drying time of your stain, giving you more time to play with the stain once it goes on, to get the color you want. Add a squirt of extender directly into the stain/topcoat mixture, and mix well.

Before you start staining, you'll want to lightly sand down the surface of your cabinets, just to rough up the edges a bit so that the stain really gets into the wood. You don't need to do any heavy duty sanding. I used an 80 grit paper with a medium grit sanding block. When that was nicely sanded, I went over it with a 220 sandpaper as well. When the sanding is done, wipe down well with a cheese cloth to get rid of any residue.

I also use denatured alcohol and water (another 1:1 mixture) and cleaned off the cabinets well. This mixture is a great de-greaser, and will remove cooking oil from kitchen cabinets as well as hair products from bathroom cabinets too. Wipe down your cabinets well with this mixture, and when dry, you're ready to tone!

Apply the stain mixture with a sponge brush, brushing on like you would paint.

Cover the whole cabinet with stain. Keep going, you got this!

For the next step, you'll need a natural bristle brush with lots of "poof".

Lightly brush with your natural bristle brush, feathering out the stain while darkening the natural color of the cabinet. Keep brushing the stain until the stain is evenly coated across the cabinets.

Check out this awesome Before and After! What a difference a little bit of stain can make!

Here's one of the larger cabinet doors post-face lift. I love it so much!


Bonus idea! Toning isn't limited to only cabinets! You can use toning on stairs, oak furniture, mantels, just about anything oak!


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  • Loretta Loretta on Feb 11, 2024

    I will definitely try it on my down stairs bath room. But I would like to see a photo of your cabinets before I tackle my LR and Kitchen cabinets.

  • Chr143499082 Chr143499082 on Dec 29, 2024

    Can you do this to a large farmhouse pine table

  • Rkr109636420 Rkr109636420 on Mar 10, 2025

    How is toning different than staining? Also, if I use 220 grit on wood, it tends to close the grain so the stain doesn’t penetrate as well. Is that your intent? I don’t mean to sound persnickety, but it just seems like you’re making a straightforward staining project a whole lot more difficult. I love the end result way more than orangy oak that dates our homes for sure, but I get the same look with a good deglosser, NO sanding unless there are scratches or gauges, and straightforward stain with topcoat application.

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  • Charlotte Charlotte on Dec 29, 2024

    No I am going to paint mine. It is to dark. I had these same cabinets in dark oak when we built my house in 1980. With all the prep you did the could have been painted.

    • Dan103558975 Dan103558975 on Feb 10, 2025

      I thought the same thing. They looked like 1980s cabinets when done.

  • Lora Lynn Lora Lynn on Feb 20, 2025

    Hey this is awesome I’m all about DIY. I have cherry stained birch cabinets do you think that color would cover or is it trial and error?

    • Rkr109636420 Rkr109636420 on Mar 10, 2025

      Hi there! I do a lot of staining and the best part is trial and error (at least for me, it’s like Christmas!). The reds in cherry are hard to completely cover if you’re just using a different stain over it. I personally love the red tones peeking out from and blending with the dark of an espresso stain. If you want to completely get rid of the cherry, I’d strip it to bare wood. I hope you do the trial and error (inside a lesser-used cabinet is a great place to test), and you have as much fun as I do! Good luck!

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