October 28, 2015

DIY Weathered Hickory Cabinets


Today's DIY comes from one of my favorite painter's, Kari Caldwell. I know you'll remember Kari from her famous laundry room makeover, because that post was banging and for good reason. Kari added a folding wood table to a double-sized laundry room and increased efficiency x100.


Well in today's post, Kari will take some hickory cabinets and transform them into beautiful weathered look.

Materials


  1. Sandpaper
  2. Stripper
  3. Weatherwood's Reclamation Stain
  4. Chip Brush
  5. Wood sealer, like Furniture Wax or Weatherwood's Maintenance Oil White

Directions


1.] In a before photo, you can see the cabinets were stripped down to their raw wood. You can do this most efficiently removing all the doors, making sure to number the backs so they can easily be replaced. Next apply a chemical stripper, then use a scraper to remove the old stain or paint. 

2.] I always like to do a soft sand when refinishing. to make sure I am all the way down to raw wood. 



3.] Once the wood is prepared, your next step is easy. You can apply Weatherwood Stain using a brush. Just drench the wood and allow the wood to absorb the stain. The process is identical for these carved wood doors and for these plain planks of wood.



As the wood dries, the stain does the work, changing and weathering the wood through oxidization. In this photo Kari's worker is applying stain to some raw hickory boards. These boards will be used to build out the shelving, making it more functional. You'll see more on that in a minute.


Here you can see exactly what I'm talking about. The stain will weather the wood and within 15 minutes on a hard wood like hickory, you'll have this gorgeous gray.


4.] On wood that's in a high touch area, like cabinetry, furniture and flooring, you need to apply a topcoat. There's a little trick with Weatherwood and topcoats, the more moisture in the topcoat, the longer the dry time, the longer the dry time = the more changed your final look will be. See, oxidizing wood you remove moisture. Adding a topcoat you add moisture. So you can use our topcoats, or you can 


Now for those wooden planks, Kari's team used the new wood to build additional wood shelf onto the built ins. Now there's a space to put all your DVD or game equipment. All tha's needed is...


Some screen to hide the ugly electronics. Now it's perfect! 



Kari and her team stained built ins on two walls and the entertainment center. I am in love with the soft gray and tan of the hickory. It's one of my favorite Weatherwood looks. You can see more awesome tutorials from kari on her Facebook page, Youtube Channel, Instagram and Website.