Starting with orange oak the only way to get gray and not mud is to paint them.
Grey gel stain on oak cabinets.
Pine and birch were both splotchy and inconsistent.
Let the first coat dry and apply one or two more coats as needed.
Gray over orange is just ugly mud colored.
In the darker rooms like the bathrooms in our house this worked out fine.
The quart of poly cost 28 50 with shipping the rough cost to refinish the cabinets with gel stain was.
Varathane weathered gray stain the color of the varathane weathered gray stain varied widely depending on the wood species.
Stripping to bare wood beyond hugely labor intensive will make the gray go over the raw pink nature of red oak so you get a pink gray more kin to the 80 s pink whitewash g technique than the current fad of gray stain.
It barely soaked into the oak at all but looked much darker on the maple.
Maybe it was my oak cabinets but i have never had so much trouble getting something to look even.
However my bright kitchen will not see gel stain.
I m happy to report that the gel stain went on the unfinished doors easily and matched all of the old doors almost perfectly.
I was worried about the gel stain looking the same on the unfinished cabinet doors as the rest of the kitchen where the gel stain was resting on top of an oak finish.
Remove cabinet doors drawers knobs and hinges stain the cabinet fronts by applying gel stain on a sponge brush with light and even strokes to avoid getting stain on the insides.
Stain the front of the cabinet doors with light and even strokes to avoid clumping.