Diane’s Gel Stained Entryway

You wouldn’t believe how many awesome emails I’ve received about the stained kitchen cabinets from people who were inspired, had tried it themselves (seemingly always with success!), or had taken my tutorials and run with them. If you’re finding this post and you want to see how I went about staining my oak kitchen cabinets with General Finishes Java Gel Stain, breeze through these three related posts:

• Staining Process #1
• Staining Process #2
• Grand Kitchen Reveal
• 6-month Touch-Ups
• Before + After: Kitchen Edition

In an email from Diane, I was the inspired one after seeing how she took it upon herself to test the gel stain on her exterior wooden door (after already learning that she loved the product from a trial on an oak vanity and medicine cabinet). Wooden exterior doors need a little more TLC than the steel and fiberglass varieties, especially without storm doors protecting them from the weather and other elements, and it was evident that her door was in need of a fresh coat of something. Rather than rush out and paint the door – which seems like the most common solution these days, pop o’ color wizards! – or going through the effort to take the door off the hinges to apply a traditional stain while it laid flat, she went over the existing finish with the same technique and polyacrylic I did with the oak cabinets, resulting in a deep, flawless, java brown finish. It doesn’t always take a huge investment to do a project, one can save a little money along the way, and in her case she was using leftover stain for the job.

I think it looks great, an inspiring and easy change that anyone can do to any wooden doorway, exterior or interior:

How else have you used gel stain? I’d love to see more before and after photos; send them to me directly at emily@merrypad.com!