If you want to take your cabinets to a lighter tone for example staining oak cabinets gray or giving them a stylish bleached look there is unfortunately no quick and easy option.
Can you sand and restain oak cabinets.
Before you stain the cabinets it s important to remove all the doors and drawers to make sanding and applying the stain easier.
Now experiment with a tinted polyurethane varnish such.
After you ve cleaned the cabinets you will want to dry them with a lint free cloth and allow the surface to air dry at a minimum of 30 minutes.
Begin by thoroughly washing grease and wax off the cabinets with tsp and water.
Use 120 grit sandpaper to lightly sand the cabinets.
Use a rag to work stain down into the pores of the wood.
Yes you do have to sand but not aggressively.
You do not need to entirely remove the top finished coat to take the cabinetry back to natural wood so easy.
You do not want to sand down to expose the wood.
I have done similar work on staining cabinets from oak to a darker stain and the first time i experienced the peeling upon applying the second quote.
Just a light and easy sanding with the alcohol to prepare the surface.
Hand sanding to roughen up the top finished coat is all you need.
The stain will not work if the cabinets have any moisture on them.
3 dry the surface.
Sanding oak cabinets with fine grit sandpaper is necessary to smooth the surface but in doing so you block the pores that would allow the cabinet to hold stain.
I will suggest you sand it or use a paint stripper to remove the top layer finishing on the bookshelf.
To achieve those effects you ll need to commit to a full scale campaign of stripping sanding and refinishing from scratch.