Truthfully, the only way I know to keep a fresh kitchen all day is toquickly tidy it before we leave,

and then take off for the day!

I’ve used gel stain here and here and here. Love it.

What is gel stain? It’s basically a thicker, pudding-like stain, that is much more forgiving to work with than your typical, watery stain. PLUS, you don’t need to sand it down to a bare finish to use it like you would for a typical stain. Yay for gel stain!!

The biggest downside is the drying time. That could also be a plus because it give you more time to work with before the wood absorbs it.

But would it work on my honey oak bathroom cabinets??

Oh yes oh yes oh yes! (it’s the big Charleston contest…I couldn’t resist)

1. you barely need to sand them down. Just to rough them up a little, I used a fine-medium grit and lightly went over them. Then clean them off with a wet rag. If they are really dirty, use a good degreasing cleaner.

2.  use a foam brush to apply the gel stain with the grain of the wood.

3. You can apply more, or wipe some off, depending on the look you are going for. As you can see, I experimented. I ended up using one good coat of Old Masters gel stain in Spanish oak and left it at that to dry.

4. Let it dry~this is the hardest step!

Try to be patient… it took a good 3 days for it to be fully dry in our bathroom, but we do live in a state with high humidity.

We also used the same staining processs on our bathroom shelves above the toilet:

5. For extra protection, especially with kids banging stools up to the cabinets, I would seal them with  a few coats of polyurethane.

It feels like we got a new vanity and shelves with a can of gel stain.

The handles are from the Martha Stewart line at Home Depot. I used some of Martha’s hardware in my kitchen too and have loved them. 

Any questions??  Have you tried gel stain?

This giveaway is now closed. The randomly drawn winner is#63, Elizabeth Hunt.

I told you we decided to be a little daring in the kids’ bathroom!

We really wanted a bold framed mirror, but we did NOT want to go through the pain of removing our mirror like we did in our master bathroom. (more on that here)  I was able to meet Lisa, the inventor of MirrorMate at Haven in June (so nice!) and asked her if they would work with spray paint to add a kick of color. She kindly sent me home with a sample of the Pacifica to test it out.

pic from MirrorMate

we’re getting to the bottom of the list. School starts one week from today. I have mixed emotions about that one, but you know when your kids cry when you suggest going to the pool, it’s probably about time for school to begin. This was a nice change.