Our family recently bought a house in Climax NC and FINALLY, after three plus years of renting and the tools being in storage, I have a functioning woodworking shop again. Life is good. The house needs quite a bit of work as it sat empty for 3 years before we bought it. Naturally, one of my first projects involved woodworking;building some replacement cabinets. I have pretty much completed new hickory cabinets for our laundry room but I can not come up with a decent looking finish on them. First note, I have never used hickory before. Second note, my wife is now into darker stains like they are showing in the new model homes. I picked up some minwax dark walnut stain and did some tests today. The first thing I noticed is that the finish was a bit blotchy. I am not used to seeing this on hardwoods; pine or other other softwoods maybe. Do I need to pre-treat hickory?
I really would wish that I could just do a clear coat on these cabinets as the grain and light/dark contrasts are beautiful but keeping the wife happy is priority #1. Any suggestions on a stain that might work here? The minwax dark walnut really looked kind of "colonial" and dated. Thanks in advance to anyone who is able to steer me in the right direction.
I really would wish that I could just do a clear coat on these cabinets as the grain and light/dark contrasts are beautiful but keeping the wife happy is priority #1. Any suggestions on a stain that might work here? The minwax dark walnut really looked kind of "colonial" and dated. Thanks in advance to anyone who is able to steer me in the right direction.