On Sun, 31 Jul 2005 19:35:37 GMT, Melissa
wrote:

Still making slow progress on our kitchen remodel. We've decided we'd
like to have the baseboard and door trim look close to the color of the
cabinets we've ordered. Thought to call the cabinet company to ask for
a recommendation - they offer their own stain in quarts that will match
as close as possible given the cabinets are maple and the trims would be
pine. Sounds great, but the stain is $35 for a quart, about 4 times
the cost of those I passed in the paint aisle in the store. Is it worth
it to purchase from the cabinet manuf. or is there some way to get a
close match buying stain off the shelf, without buying many cans as test
runs? The cabinets are maple, and the stain is called Spice. It looks
like the color of honey to me, although they have a honey stain that
looks more like natural wood to me. If I do go with the manufacturer's
stain, how close would the color match be between maple and pine?
Thanks for any advice.

If you take a cabinet door or other representative stained part to a
paint store they can match the color. Take samples of the pine trim,
too. A good store will show you various results, dried, and let you
pick which you like best.

Note that the cabinets have a finish over the stain which changes the
appearance. For a quick approximation of this on your pine samples,
wipe with water or mineral spirits; or to be nearly certain apply
shellac, lacquer, or varnish and let dry.

If you read up on staining you'll also find the finish changes with
application technique, e.g., thinning or not thinning the stain, how
much it's thinned, how long stain sits before wiping, so you need to
factor technique into your comparisons.

Is the off-the-shelf stain price for pre-mixed or custom? It's
doubtfull you'll find an exact match in pre-mixed, though it may be
close enough - only way to tell is to buy some and try it. Around
these parts custom costs more and stores will only do gallons.

I don't know how much trim you have to do, but stain goes a long way,
so the cabinet maker's $35-a-quart stain may not be a bad deal,
depending on how you want to spend your time.

Just being persnickety here, but pine will never look like maple or
maple like pine unless they have an opaque or nearly opaque finish
applied -.

--
Luke
__________________________________________________ _________________
"War is essentially an evil thing. Its consequences are not
confined to the belligerent states alone, but affect the whole
world. To initiate a war of aggression, therefore, is not only an
international crime; it is the supreme international crime
differing only from other war crimes in that it contains within
itself the accumulated evil of the whole."
-- International Military Tribunal at Nuremberg