Newly-Stained wood cabinets give your kitchen a whole new vibe. It’s also a great way to give your kitchen the ‘remodeled’ look without going all-out on the dough, providing you with more room to check out other decorative items – or maybe allow you to get even a brand new dining set.

However, the staining process is not just about stripping off your wood kitchen cabinets’ current stain and applying another. This could be a tedious process which takes a significant amount of time and patience to do. If you’re into DIY but this is your first time staining, you may be in for the challenge of your life. To keep you on track, here are a few tips to help you along the way to fabulous-looking cabinets:

1) Shop for materials. You will need 3 to 4 pcs of high quality and moderately coarse sand paper (150-grit) and a finer one (220-grit), tack cloth, rags, stain, rubber gloves, a foam brush or another rag, and Polyurethane varnish.

2) Prep your wood cabinets by doing a lot of sanding. Sanding allows you to create a perfect surface for your stain to soak into. It also is a must if you want to remove shallow scratches and dents off your wood cabinets. In addition, sanding also smooths out any rough edges that may cause splinters. Strip off current varnish and previous stains applied to the wood. Not performing such would mess the whole project, leaving you with an uneven, splotchy-looking material.

3) Wipe like crazy. Using a tack cloth, remove all the sawdust in between sanding. Make sure that there are no dust remnants clinging on to the wood as this might affect the outcome of the project, leaving a lumpy, uneven finish. You might want to clean the area with a vacuum cleaner to ensure that no unnecessary items get in the way of your project.

4) Pre-stain the wood. Since wood have varying pore sizes, you can’t expect even staining all throughout in one application. To make sure that you, a DIY-er, can eliminate the headaches of uneven staining, it is advisable for you to make use of wood conditioners that act as primers to make sure that wood is ready for staining. This step is especially important for birch wood cabinets. Since these are light-colored wood varieties, you need to definitely pre-stain to prevent blotchiness achieved from when you insist on going raw before applying stain. You may choose from water- or oil-based conditioners. Both work well, however, the down side of applying water-based varieties is that they can cause minor wood swelling. Leave the conditioner to dry for 24 to 48 hours.

5) Stain away. Once the wood conditioner has dried out, you can now start applying the stain of choice. Apply the stain by going in circular motion to enforces the stain to seep into the wood and seals it, giving it an even coat. Leave it to dry for 48 hours. Reapply a second layer towards the direction of the grain and leave to dry for 72 hours to make sure everything has dried accordingly.