G’s Paula Deen-esqe perfect dye and wood staining recipe, y’all

The 4 blocks of wood you see here are 4 sample combinations of wood dye and stain for the kitchen cabinets. G tested recipes for wood stain until he got just the right one to match the other woodwork in the house (based on our house’s original oak floor color) with the white quarter-sawn oak of the new cabinets. Although I’ve never heard him say “y’all”, I like to think of G as the Paula Deen of wood staining – and isn’t Paula an evil genius*? People often criticize Paula for using butter as currency, but hey, you do you, Paula. You do you.

G is quite the evil genius, too. He has a secret evil lab and everything. The lab is set up in the dining room right now so I guess it’s not really a true secret lab like in the bowels of anything. And aside from the bunnycide incident THAT WE DON’T LINK TO BECAUSE OF THE HATE MAIL, he is actually quite nice, not evil. If you fell down, he’d help you back up. He wouldn’t point at you and laugh. See? NICE. One time I was with my friend E and I walked into a glass wall at a Starbucks and she pointed and laughed at me when I fell down. But you know what? It was point-and-laugh-worthy. Regardless, G does have a most excellent recipe for wood dye and stain that he concocted in his evil genius dining room laboratory.

The super secret wood dying secret

We chose to dye the wood first, then stain it. This process makes the flecks of the quarter-sawn wood “pop” nicely. (blah blah blah we love flecky craftsman quarter-sawn wood, you know the drill).

TO RAISE THE GRAIN OR NOT TO RAISE THE GRAIN. Back when we stained the living room wainscoting, we used a dye solution of wood dye & water. A water-based solution like that will “raise the grain” of the wood, meaning it will swell up the cells of the grain once you apply it. So you want to raise the grain before you dye it by wetting down the wood with a sponge, then sanding it. It’s kind of an annoying extra step when you just want to get to the action. So G set out to skip this “raising the grain” step completely this time around. How? By using a solution of dye and denatured alcohol. Since alcohol evaporates quickly, the grain doesn’t have a chance to raise. SANDING STEP AVERTED, LAZYPANTS. VICTORY ACHIEVED. TELL THE KIDS! ALCOHOL RULES!

G’s Butter-free Wood Dye & Stain Recipe, y’all

INGREDIENTS

For the dye solution:

½ oz TransTint Dye (we used Reddish Brown)

2 cups denatured alcohol

Directions:

Mix it well. Very well. Make it in as large a batch as you need. We needed a lot. G bought fancy measuring cups and I was like yowza – we didn’t even splurge like that on our wedding registry. When I bake brownies I use a plastic cup and count Mississippis for teaspoons.

Apply to the wood in the direction of the grain with a sponge brush. Wipe of excess with a clean rag, but honestly, the stuff should dry pretty fast. We finished all the dying and went straight to staining.

(bear with my photos here as I was trying to take pics with my phone as we were both applying and wiping):

Applying dye to cabinet shelf. Any excess was wiped off immediately.

Dyed & ready for stain

For the stain:

No recipe here, just General Finishes gel stain in Antique Walnut.

(G tested the General Finishes water-based stain but it was awful. We hated the results, so Gel won, hands-down.)

Directions: Apply an even coat to wood in direction of the grain. We didn’t really let it sit for any specific length of time. G just applied it, passed the board to me, and I wiped it off (again, in the direction of the grain) with a clean rag.

Apply the stain - looks like puddin' y'all

Wiping off the excess stain. Looks like delicious squid ink! (for the Bourdain fans)

... and then we did a miliion of them

Polyurethane:

G’s spray-poly’d the wood with General Finishes Enduro-Var water-based polyurethane. This worked great on the flat pieces we hadn’t assembled yet. However, the drawers came pre-assembled, and spraying was tricky. So I brushed the poly on these. 3 coats on everything.

finished... but not assembled

SO PRETTY, YES?

Unfortunately we haven’t even started on the doors yet:

…deep breaths…

*The real evil at the Food Network lies inside one Mr. Bobby Flay. That guy is the devil. He should be banned from television. I need to start a whole new blog to list my reasons. But trust me.

Ok fine, here’s why – have you watched that “throwdown” show of his? Isn’t it the most mean-spirited show that ever was? I mean, they trick some poor unsuspecting yokel into thinking “GEE LOOK AT ME, MA! I’M GOING ON THE TV TO SHOW THE WORLD I HAVE THE BEST MAC AND CHEESE! WOW THANK YOU KIND PEOPLE AT FOOD NETWORK!” and then Bobby comes in flipping tables over and doing the ‘there’s something on your tie’ nose-flicking bit and spray painting ‘BOB-B waz here’ on the walls with his minions, saying “You think you’re the best? Yeah, well I’m Bobby and this is my show and I put chipotles and blue corn in everything and have you even SEEN a chipotle? I’LL DESTROY YOU!” and then the Bobby minions ride motorcycles around the poor  sack who is in tears at this point and then the showdown throwdown happens and smug Bobby wins. I hate that guy.