This post has been a long time in the making. I had thought about gel staining my cabinets for months and finally jumped in this winter. Maybe it was the winter boredom that seems to happen around January, but whatever the case I set out to research this craze and update our bathroom vanities. You may be wondering “how to use gel stain on your cabinets” like I did and become overwhelmed by all the tutorials out there. I did. I watched YouTube videos, I read blogs and I realized that the results were spectacular and that very easily I could achieve this amazing dark java look.
Well, it’s now March and I’ve finally been able to process the entire process. First, this is a very time consuming job. That part I knew going into it. But what didn’t happen was the exact same results that everyone else magically had. However, I’m not totally sad I did this project. I definitely think it was worth it for us in our situation, but I’m not sure gel stain is for everyone. Hopefully this LONG post will help you make that decision.
How to Use Gel Stain on Cabinets
First, let’s talk about the supplies. Almost every single tutorial I read talked about how inexpensive this gel staining project would be. And while it is cheaper than buying a new vanity, it’s not less than $20 which is what most blogs I read talked about. Sure, if you have all these supplies to apply the gel stain correctly, it will only cost you the can of gel stain, but I personally did not have it all so it was pricey.
Here’s everything you need to gel stain.
Krud Cutter (to clean off the cabinets)
Paper Liner (to protect your floors and walls)
Painters Tape (to tape down the paper liner and protect your walls)
Sand Block
Srubby Sponge (to use with the Krud Cutter)
Putty Knife
Wood Filler (if you’re planing to change the knobs)
Paint Stir Sticks
Paint Ventilation Mask
Rags
Nitrile Gloves (At least 6 pairs)
Tack Cloth
Plastic Tarp
Steel Wool (very fine, 0000)
Sponge Brush
And for those who have everything, all you need is:
Wipe On Poly
Gel Stain
And for those like me that really are starting from scratch:
Knobs
Hinges
What I didn’t have to buy:
Old socks!
So, yeah. It was over $100 to do this project. Still, it was less than replacing the three vanities so I wasn’t sad about the cost, I just wanted to make sure you were hearing the real truth of what this kind of project costs.
Here was my cabinet before staining. I had scrubbed it with the Krud cutter. We bought a foreclosure and it was evident the house was not cared for, for quite awhile. I still feel like after three years we’re still cleaning up the grime and this project was no exception. As you can see, the cabinets just look beat up.
I’d like to put a little disclaimer here. Personally, I am not a fan of painting beautiful solid oak anything. However, our cabinets were too far gone. I grew up in a home built in 1905 and remember the hours upon hours my parents talked of stripping all their beautiful woodwork in our home. So, generally speaking I’m a purist when it comes to historic homes and their oak cabinetry and woodwork – this 1986 foreclosure house, however, needed some gel staining love.
One of the other things I was interested in testing out with the gel stain was the veneer side on one of our vanities. I mean, why do they provide solid oak cabinets and then put cheap wood print on the side? It makes no sense to me. I was excited to cover that baby up.
After filling the knob holes with wood putty and letting them dry a full 24 hours, I started to sand. This process went pretty quickly. The doors were already beat up so sanding actually made them look better. Ha! Because this is gel stain, you don’t have to sand like you would with regular stain. That is the appeal to me with gel stain.
You can see where the putty went. Please READ this very carefully – if you are going from a knob with two holes to one with a single hole, don’t do it. The putty was still visible after staining. I’ve done a few projects with stainable putty and it never looks right. I’ve done a light putty before staining and then with this one chose a dark putty so that it might blend in better. It doesn’t. I wasn’t too worried about filling these holes because I was going to purchase these drawer pulls. I knew they would cover any mistakes, and really I could have just not filled the hole but I wanted to again try out putty to see if you could really stain it – be forewarned.
After taking the vacuum cleaner to my cabinetry to clean up the sanding dust, I then took the tack cloths and went over them to make sure every little piece of dust was gone. Tack cloths are cool, man. They’re the right kind of sticky without being sticky – you know?
The last part is to set up your room. I took off all the doors before sanding and laid them out in our larger bathroom floor. This bathroom had a window for ventilation. And yes, I opened the window when it was 20 degrees out. Brrrrr! The other two bathrooms have vents and the only thing I stained in them was the actual shell of the vanity.
Once the not-so-fun-prep is finished, I was ready to tackle the staining! I made sure to stir the gel stain very well with my paint stick. I put an old sock on top of my gloved hand – turned on the Stuff You Missed in History Class podcast and went to town.
I’m not going to lie, I really enjoyed the uninterrupted time of staining. My husband watched the kids and I could listen to an entire podcast from start to finish. It’s the little things!
Here’s the difference between the before and the first coat. The first coat actually looks a lot more even in this picture then it truly was. I had a really hard time getting the stain to go on evenly in those little crevices. I think the thickness of the stain (the gel factor) made it really hard to make the coverage even. This was the main difference I saw from regular stain and gel stain. There is no way you could do just one coat of gel stain. That is, if you’re using the sock method. I do think you might be able to do one coat with a paint brush – but I didn’t try that method in the beginning.
Essentially, I rubbed some stain on liberally with the grain of the wood and then used a rag to lightly wipe it off. It was really a very similar process to regular staining.
Here’s the first coat again on the drawer. Look at the stainable putty. Ugh! Granted it was dark to begin with but I knew already that it was not going to cover correctly.
I let the first coat dry for a full 24 hours. Some say you can do another coat six hours later but that didn’t really work with our schedule and I like to give a long time between coats.
Here’s another picture of the first coat on the actual cabinet. You can see how it soaks in like stain, but not so evenly.
Here’s what it looked like after the second coat.
HAHAHAHAHAHA. Ha!
I mean, I might have started to really freak out if it had not been all the tutorials I read that said how awful it looks after the second coat. But really, how even can gel stain be on wood this worn?
Either way, I was obviously committed.
No turning back, baby! Here’s another view of the second coat. It looks a little better on the vanity.
Okay, so here’s where my whole strategy changed. I put a third coat on and it looked just about as bad as the second – except darker. I almost cried. Do you see that streaky-ness still there? It just looks so uneven.
So I did what any reasonable person does and cleaned my hands off and got right back on the computer. I had remembered reading that you could paint on the gel stain and so I decided to go for that method. There was no way I was going to put 20 layers of stain on these babies to finally get it even.
I grabbed a sponge brush and very thinly placed a third layer on the rest of the doors and the cabinets. FINALLY, it started to look normal. In hindsight I wish I had painted it on in the beginning. Live and learn from me. 🙂
Here’s what it looks like after the painted on effect. Ah, much, much better. It finally looked like I thought it would. It wasn’t perfect but it was looking pretty good. I had to step away for awhile. You know when you look at something for hours and so you therefore see every single imperfection? Yes, that was me. My husband thought it looked awesome – but then again, he loves anything I do like this because he’s supportive like that – and because he didn’t have to do it. Ha! 🙂
Okay, here’s where the truth comes in. See how it’s still today a little streaky? I did a fourth coat to a drawer and it still looked like this so I decided to call it a day. No matter how many coats, gel stain does not go on as evenly as regular stain. I think if I had used a brush from the beginning, it would have been better, but as it was – this was my end result. I’m also wondering if I struggled with the streakiness because of the un-evenness of the wood to begin with. There were so many worn parts.
This picture above really shows the imperfections because of the lighting. I wanted to be able to show you that so that you can see how this really goes on. In most lights it really doesn’t look that streaky. In fact, our downstairs half bath looks more like what you see on most tutorials. This bathroom has the most light from a window that is directly across from it so it picks up all the detail.
Here’s what the veneer looks like. Not bad, actually. Still a little streaky but it definitely looks better than the original.
Here’s the final product! I really am glad i did this project. I do think they look WAY better. You may be wondering why I didn’t do the bottom toe kick. We’re going to be re-doing all our baseboards in the house this year and I wasn’t sure how I would wrap those around there, so I decided to hold off. I probably will end up gel staining it, though.
Here’s a side by side view. Definitely an improvement!
So, here’s my honest review of gel stain. I would use it again on vanities like this to spruce them up. I might even use it on furniture that I want to make a java color. It was worth the investment.
However, there is no way I would attempt using gel stain on my kitchen cabinets as others have. Maybe it was my oak cabinets, but I have never had so much trouble getting something to look even. In the darker rooms like the bathrooms in our house this worked out fine. However, my bright kitchen will not see gel stain. Instead, I plan to paint them white, which is a project for this spring. Eeeek! (Update: I decided to paint our kitchen cabinets. You can see that process here.)
If you’re looking for some good tutorials on how to use gel stain I found this video and this video especially helpful.
So, what do you think? Have you tried gel stain? Will you try gel stain? Have I scared you away? 🙂
Ready for another project? How about making some of these Cheap Simple DIY Lights?
Comments & Reviews
Mark says
I had such bad results for a few times I use gel stain , I couldn’t understand why everybody was having such an easy time and I wasn’t . I contacted the manufacturer and change the way I use gel stain , now I’ll probably never use regular stain . Tact cloth can leave a residue and make uneven results with gel stains also you should apply pre stain conditioner before using Gel Stain, it will even everything out. Also,( This is something no one told me but it has worked for me).. the spots that didn’t look so perfect even after doing everything right can be lightly sanded while the gel stain is wet, it will actually even it out. I’m sure you learned a lot and maybe already know all this since you posted this 3 years ago, but like woodworking or anything it takes practice and I would hope that people will give gel stain a chance as it really is a great product.
Lynette says
Thanks for the info, Mark! I had not thought to use a conditioner but I do believe it would have helped. The wood was older and since it was in the bathroom was probably susceptible to moisture. I have not tried it again as I’ve not had the opportunity to. However, I do think it would be a good project in the future if I found another piece that I wanted to re-stain.
Julie says
Thanks for your honest review! I recently gel stained my kitchen cabinets with the Java Gel from General Finishes and regret it because of the same issue of streaking you describe. I had success with my bathroom cabinets so I was hung-ho to do my kitchen.
Well, the unevenness was awful on some of the cabinets that I had to really sand down. I wanted to wipe it off after applying and setting a bit so that they wouldn’t be so dark as I have a very dark green granite countertop. The first two coats on the worn drawers were just awful. I think the cabinets were too worn for staining, even gel staining. Even with sanding. I had to keep going darker. Some turned out great, but all it takes is one drawer to screw up the whole process.
So in hindsight I should have either painted the gel stain on and not wiped it off, or just painted the cabinets a lighter color. I put six weeks into the project and I’m not willing to tackle it again for a while. I am planning to sell the house anyway.
I wonder if another wood preservative product would have helped. I finally did use a wood conditioner and I think that helped.
Lynette says
I wonder if it does depend on the age of the cabinets. The cabinets in this post in our previous home were put in the home in the 1980s. I’ve never thought about about the age of them making a difference, but maybe it does. I’ve not gone back to gel stain since I did this project. I’m happy with how it turned out but decided not to do it again to other cabinets.
minnie says
why does the java other tutorials show to wiping it off but all other tutorials leave it on overnight. then reapply?
Lynette says
Hi Minnie, I found that doing what the manufacturer suggested did not work for me. My guess is based on the wood used there may be different recommendation. I would always test before finding the solution for your project.
Laurie Salo says
I have a contractor friend who says they don’t even sand their cabinets before using this gel stain. He also says no other finish after gel stain. What are your thoughts?
Jamie says
I’m curious to know how well the Java Gel Stain is holding up for you?
Lynette says
Hi Jamie. It held up well until we moved. I’m no longer living in the same house, so I can’t give you a recent update, but I can say that after we applied it, it held up very well while we still lived there which was about one year after application.
Celia says
They look great. Did you polyurthane? If so, HOW did that work out?
Lynette says
Hi Celia, I used the Minwax Wipe On Poly. It was easy and worked great.
Ginger says
Currently in the process of doing my vanity with black stain. Your comments ring true for me too. I started using a foam brush and wiping off, but that was a mistake. Now I’m using the foam brush like painting. But still they are super streaky after 2 coats. Starting to wonder if I just paint them black over the stain and if that’s even an option?? Thoughts?
Lynette says
The third coat was the charm for me. It still wasn’t what I thought it would be, but you don’t notice it as much once you’re done and go on to your day to day.
Lisa says
I’ve been “testing” a couple different gel stains on the backs of my bathroom cabinet doors — and I gotta admit, they all look terrible. It’s a streaky, uneven mess. 🙁 Pinterest lies! LOL
I’m gonna end up painting my cabinets a dark gray instead I think.
Lynette says
Ha! Yes, it is a hard thing to master – and I never did master it. They look okay once you’re done and you’re not looking at them super closely. At least for me they were a major improvement even if they were a little streaky… 🙂
Denise Johnson says
I actually read your how to gel stain vanities, as I have been been convincing myself to do so to my bathroom vanities which are exactly the same condition yours were very worn. I have been researching many sites and this one seemed to be the most realistic one, and i am going to do it now and then, I too am gong to be doing my Kitchen Cabinets as well, so Im really hoping to get the same live info from you as you do your kitchen as well wish me luck on the bathrooms.
Lynette says
Hi Denise! Good luck with your project! Here’s the link to our kitchen cabinets in our previous home. Hope it helps!
https://www.cleverlysimple.com/how-to-paint-cabinets-from-someone-who-just-did/
Stephanie says
Doing this now and totally agree! UGH!
Lynette says
I’m sorry Stephanie! The good news is, you don’t notice the details with the gel stain in the day to day after they’re finished. 🙂