Stain Your Wood Cabinets Darker, step by step

The stain on our kitchen cabinets was too orange and dated-looking. We enjoyed the wood grain, but simply hoped a darker, more contemporary color. We simply did not enjoy the idea of sanding or stripping off the old finish. Luckily, we found a product that would let us skip that messy and tiring step while still giving us the end results we hoped.

Darker stained kitchen cabinets before and after using Minwax Polyshades

You can see our results above, and read below for how we got there!

What Stain Product Did You Use?

We used Minwax Polyshades for this project, which is similar to a gel stain. Unlike traditional wood stains, which have to soak into the wood to work, a PolyShades coat or gel stain product sits on top of the existing stain, much like a paint application would. Like paint, you need to take a bit more care when applying PolyShades to avoid drips or brushstrokes – but we will cover that in more detail below (even on video)!

These products come in plenty of colors, but we chose one called Tudor in a satin finish. We had previously used a darker PolyShades color on our bathroom vanity (Espresso) but hoped something slightly lighter in the kitchen. Keep in mind that your final color will be impacted by the color you are staining over, so you may want to test a few colors in an inconspicuous spot (like the back of a door) before starting. And you should consistently go darker – so from light to medium, or medium to dark.

Minwax PolyShades can in Tudor Satin finish

These products are also oil-based, which means you can skip the usual last step of sealing the stained surface with a coat of polyurethane sealer (like you have to do with water-based stains).

Can You Stain Your Cabinets Darker Without Sanding?

While yes, you can avoid fully sanding and stripping an old stain finish off of your kitchen cabinets, you will need to do some light sanding as part of this project. So be wary of any walkthroughs that suggest otherwise. But do not fret – this is the type of sanding you can easily do by hand with a plain sanding block or sheet of sandpaper. Lightly roughing up the surface will assist your new stain adhere for longer-lasting results.

Lightly sanding wood cabinets before applying darker stain

What Materials Do You Need?

The best part of this project is likely what you DO NOT need. You do not need any polyurethane sealers or varnish. You also do not need any chemical strippers, power sanders, or other heavy-duty products to get your already stained cabinets down to their raw wood. Still, you will want to have these supplies on hand:

Minwax PolyShades or similar gel stain product (we only needed 1 quart for two coats)
2 or 3 stain-grade paint brushes (small sufficient to fit in mouth of stain can)
220-grit sandpaper or sanding block
Extra fine steel wool (#000 grade)
Screwdriver or drill
Dropcloth or old cardboard
Nitrile gloves (optional)
Wood filler & putty knife (optional)
Painter stands (optional)
Degreaser or liquid deglosser (optional)

You will also need a space – like a garage or perhaps a basement – to lay out your cabinet doors while staining and drying.

How Long Does It Take To Stain Your Cabinets Darker?

The process is quite straightforward as Hands-on projects go (if you can paint a room, you can do this) but it does take a bit of time, mainly due to the drying process. Ours took about five days total, but yours may vary depending on the size of your kitchen or the amount of cabinetry you are staining (we were only doing our lowers).

Prep day
First staining day
Second staining day
Drying & curing
Reassembly

Step 1: Remove Cabinet Doors & Hardware

Before beginning, you will want use your screwdriver to remove your door, drawers, and any hardware (knobs, pulls, hinges, etc) so you will have unobstructed surfaces to apply stain too. You also want to spread out your doors and drawers apart from the cabinet frames so that those two surfaces do not accidentally come in contact during the process (which could make things stick together).

Cabinet doors laid flat on cardboard while being stained.

We propped all of our doors up on old paint sample cans, but you could also use a set of painter tripods if you are fancier than us.

Step 2: Patch Any Hardware Holes

If you are changing any hardware (like using a distinct pull size or hinge style) you will want to fill any useless hardware holes now. We chose to eliminate all of the knobs on the backside of our kitchen peninsula for a cleaner look. The drawers were simply dummies anyways (they pulled out on the other side) and doors were simply secondary/less used access points to the front cabinets.

Dummy cabinets and faux cabinet doors in wood stained kitchen

So Sherry wood puttied the holes, let them dry, sanded, and repeated. We consistently like two coats of wood putty on big holes like this to account for any shrinking or dips. In retrospect, we should’ve used a darker wood filler that was closer to the original cabinet color.

Wood filling old knobs holes in kitchen cabinets

This lighter wood filler is what we had on hand and we made it work by dabbing a little more stain on the puttied parts with each coat of PolyShades.

Step 3: Give Your Cabinets A Light Sand

To prepare for staining, you will want to sand everything – drawer, doors, and frames – lightly with a high grit sanding block. Again, you are not trying to remove the old stain. You simply want to rough up the surface slightly so that the new stain can adhere.

Lightly sanding wood cabinets before stain application

After sanding, be sure to wipe everything down with a damp rag or paper towel to remove any sanding dust or dirt. Also, if you have any spots that are coated with grease or grime, you may need to use a spray degreaser to make sure the surface is fully clean. We wiped everything down with a liquid deglosser simply to be safe before beginning.

Step 4: Apply Your First Coat of Stain

PolyShades is best applied with a paintbrush and you will want to systematically do your frames, drawer fronts, and both sides of any cabinet doors. We in fact chose to not stain the backs of our cabinet doors (shhh!) but if you do, be sure to not flip them over until your stain is fully dry.

Also, do not be alarmed if your first coat does not look much darker going on. It will dry darker and you can consistently do additional coats until it is dark sufficient for you. We ultimately did two coats.

First coat of darker PolyShades stain on wood cabinet frames

Note: These are dummy drawer fronts that are screwed in place, which is why we did not remove them.

Pointer: Applying PolyShades For A Smooth Finish

We had learned from our first project using PolyShades that applying it is fairly straightforward, but it can be a little challenging to keep it from looking drippy or streaky. We came up with a plain method of dragging the brush along everything after it is applied to smooth it out. I filmed this swift video of myself putting one coat on a door so you could see it in action:

Note: You can also view this video on YouTube

In case you cannot watch the video, here is the gist:

The stain goes on fairly thick, which is exciting if you are going for a darker color. Resist the urge to leave it thick because that excess stain will create drips.
Do not worry too much about brush marks at first. Focus first on covering the area that you are working on.
Once you’ve got the whole area covered, go back over the whole surface with long, even strokes. This will thin everything out and make your brush lines more even.

Although do as I show in the video (not in the pics below – oops) and brush in the direction of the wood grain. This will assist any lingering brush lines blend with the wood grain better.

Three stages of applying Minwax PolyShades gel stain with brush

Step 5: Let Dry, Buff, & Recoat

After our first coat fully dried (we gave it 24 hours) it was substantially darker than it looked when wet – phew! If you are glad with the color, you can be done here. We hoped our slightly darker so we chose to apply a second coat of PolyShades.

Before beginning the second coat, we followed the manufacturer’s instructions and buffed the first coat with some quite fine steel wood (000 grade). This does not visibly damage the finish, it simply roughs it up sufficient for the second coat to hold pleasant and firmly.

Sanding dark stained cabinet door front with extra fine steel wool

You can see below how these coats “build” and gradually get darker. Also, you can tell how the “wet look” was not a good predictor of how it’d dry.

Four stages of PolyShades stain on cabinet drawers showing wet and dry coats

Step 6: Let Second Coat Dry

The next day, as our second coat was nearly fully dry, we could at last see the results of our efforts (thanks to not staining the backs of the cabinet doors!). You can see in the side-by-side below that we certainly achieved the darker and more contemporary, less orange and dated look we were hoping for. And we enjoyed that you could still the wood grain coming through!

Side by side of two coats of Tudor PolyShades stain next to original wood stain

Again, this is the part with a traditional stain you would need to seal your wood cabinets with varnish or polyurethane. But since PolyShades is an oil-based stain and poly in one, you can skip it!

Step 7: Reassemble Your Kitchen

With everything done, you can reattach your drawers, doors, and hardware. If you are installing new hardware, we have a fully walkthrough on how to easily (and swiftly!) make new holes for cabinet knobs and pulls. For us, we simply used the existing holes and brought in darker knobs that nearly disappeared against the dark stain. So here is our final look!

Final kitchen with dark stained lower cabinets and white painted upper cabinets

As a reminder, this is where we were last week with those redder and more knotty lowers. Although, this is after we had painted the upper cabinets white.

Before photo of lower cabinets with orange wood color

And it is a far cry from where we began when we picked up the house!

Before photo of kitchen when home was purchased

UPDATE: Since originally completing this project in 2014 we soon updated the laminate countertops by applying a faux concrete finish to them using Ardex.

Faux concrete finish on laminate kitchen cabinets

And two years later, we fully remodeled this kitchen with a fully new layout. But the old cabinets held up strong for two years while we waited to begin the remodel. You can read all about that in these posts: