on my blog I told you guys how I refinish a cabinet using general finish's gel stain and but I'm going to give you a tutorial on this one just because it's a small cabinet and it should be easy for me to show you so this is my bathroom cabinet as you can see it's like a honey or a red oak color and I just don't I don't love OBE for my home so I'm going to give this a coat of general finishes gel stain in Java and the reason I'm going with Java is because the rest of this bathroom is in black and white as you can see and pink so I just think that the Java will be a nicer complement to the color scheme is already going on in the bathroom the rest of the cabinetry that I have downstairs actually I use the general finishes brown mahogany but for this one I'm going to do the Java I've already tried to update it as you can see with knobs and make it look a little nice the countertop is a laminate which is fine I don't mind the look of it because it's at least not some kind of weird funky color like my upstairs bathroom was Orange it was orange pink granite so the first thing I'm going to do is I'm going to remove the doors I already started to take this one off and I just wanted to show you how I do that these have got these brackets that look like this and the way you remove them is you take the screws out of the top and bottom and then leave these screws alone and take the one out of the middle and that will remove the entire bracket from the door then in order to keep to make sure that you put the same brackets back in the same place I label the back and this one as you can see this is the left door and it's the top so I'm going to write right on the back of here tl and then that will just alert me when I go to put this back on which which hinge goes where and the reason you want to make sure that you put the same hinges back in the place where you remove them is because they've already been calibrated to hang just right on the cabinet and when you replace them when you accidentally mix them up it may not hang right and you don't want to have to redo that again so I will label these and then I put them in a baggie with all the screws I don't any of the screws they're all the same and then I save them in a safe place where I can find them later so I'm going to go ahead and finish removing the doors and then I'll show you how I get them prepped and cleaned and ready for first staining normally I would take these doors outside and do them outside but since they're only two and they're not very big I'm just going to go ahead and do it in my little shower that's in the bathroom down here what I have is a bucket it's mixed with about a gallon of water and then about 8 ounces of tsp substitute and it's a good nice general easy cleaner I'm going to take the brush and scrub down both sides of the door the both the doors and then after that I'm going to take a rag and clean the whole cabinet and as you can see I left the things inside because I have no plans to paint the inside it's just not necessary so I will only go and do the outside I'm actually going to put tape though and some of these probably some of these corners just to make sure that I don't go crazy with the paint and get it slopping places where it shouldn't so then after I clean that then I'll be ready to let it dry and then paint it okay so I have all of my cabinet around the wall taped up and I put some brown craft paper on the floor just to protect the floor a little bit from splashes because splashes do happen if you can ignore the contents of the inside of my cabinet you can see where I taped all along the wall on the side too so what I'm going to do is one that when you use a gel stain you want to go with the grain of the wood so first what I'm going to do is and I have my gel stain right here it's general finishes Java and I have it mixed up really good with a paint stirrer for a couple minutes to make sure that it's the color and sign is all performed so what I'm going to do is get my camera adjusted right I'm going to slip with the grain here at the top and I'm going to go even though the grain runs this way on this side of the wood I'm going to start just and do the strips that go this way first and then when I do it when I do paint that entire piece there I'm just going to UM it'll Biddle make the grain more uniform when I come back and do it this way okay so just me going to be careful not to get it on the countertop underneath too much whoops I say that and then I just hit it but what you want what you're going for here is kind of a thin even coat because the gel stain does take more than one coat anyway you can do I think the Java I use this in my upstairs bathroom and I think the Java took about two coats to get to the consistency that I liked it or the color that I liked it I don't want to completely erase the woodgrain because I kind of like the wood grain to show through a little bit so I think the best bet is to coats for this one because otherwise it looks almost solid black now you can use some some people that use this gel stain decide to use a sock or something else to apply it with I just think it's easier to use a brush because I think it's gives you the ability to be more precise with where you put your paint but whatever is comfortable for you is what I would suggest so if it's more comfortable for you to use a sock to apply it then feel free by all means to do it that way so as you can see I did the top I'm going to go in and do the under under sides to here and the sides that I'm not going to go onto the inside of the wood I mean of the cabinet itself so just thin even coats in the direction of the wood grain and make sure that you wear gloves when you apply this because it's oil-based and so it's kind of hard to rinse off so as you can see I did that top the top grain was running this way left to right and then the grain on this panel is running top bottom so I'm just going to go along with the grain of the wood so I'm going to finish up with this and I'll check back with you in just a minute this is what your cabinet will look like after one coat of the general finishes gel stain as you can see there's a lot of it's a thin layer so there's a lot of still bear wood showing which is fine because when I do the second coat it will add to the overall depth and look of the wood but it already is an improvement I believe over the original red oak now I'm going to show you how I do the doors so I have the doors laid out on a couple of boxes one is just a box that water bottles come in when you buy them from the store and the other is just a regular shipping box I do that so that I can reach all the edges of the doors and I'm going to do the front first so that I can keep an eye on the way the paint splatters I have had trouble before with paint dripping over the edges of doors and so I want to make sure that that doesn't happen this time so I'm going to make sure that I do the from going to do the fronts first and then I'm going to do the edges as well so that when I do the back side I don't have to worry about the edges they'll already be done and then I won't have anything dripping over to the front of my paint I do have this set up inside on my living room on a piece of plastic just because I live in Florida and I worry about the humidity and the length of time that the paint dries so in order for my paint to have optimal drying time I'm going to do it inside and I do have the space inside to do it you can also do this in the garage either way it's fine I'm just going to do it inside because it's easier also on my knees and my legs being on the floor and painting these doors so I'm going to start on the inside panel here and around the edges and then I'm going to finish with the actual trim all the way around okay so now I'm getting a pair of fresh gloves on and I'm going to paint the front side of mine I did also tie my hair up for this part of the project because if you get your hair and it's really hard to get your hair clean so I'm going to start in the center and I'm going to get make sure the stain gets in all those nook and crannies now they say that you should I believe sand and in between each coat I have done it both ways I think sanding is kind of a hassle because then you have to clean up all the dust afterwards before you paint so I'm not going to Sandy's I found that my bathroom upstairs has been wearing really well for the past year without so I the least work amount you have to do I think is better sometimes this tersely if it's not going to change the way that your paint wears over time you do want to make sure though that your paint does not pool at all you can't clean it up once it does once it pools you're pretty much stuck with the look so make sure even after you walk away that you come back and check on it and just make sure that your paint hasn't become too thick in areas and pooled anywhere even sanding because the nature of the way this stain works even sanding doesn't really take away those areas of school pain so just like the cabinet I'm going along with a grain of the wood and thin even coats knowing that you can't do just one coat of this stain you have to do multiple just depends on how dark you want it I like I said before I really like the way that sort of the grain looks and the layering effect anyway so I don't necessarily want to do three coats so I do do it probably a little thicker than some do because I just don't want to there's a lot of days of drying time in between coats and I don't want to spend the majority of my time waiting on the drying so I probably do paint it on a little thicker than they recommend I'm going to carefully do the edges so to make sure that my paint doesn't cool and run over the side although if it does at least it's running over on to the back and not to the front I have made the mistake of paintings starting on the back first just because I didn't want my paint to go facedown on the front of the cabinets but then I find that you can't you don't really see the drippings and stuff until too late and then your drippings unfortunately are on the front where you see it most so for these I started on the fronts instead of the backs don't worry too much about the way the finish looks at this point just make sure that there is no pooling make sure you continue to go along the grain the grain of the wood also I think it's worth noting that if you get your paint on your skin or on the floor or an area where you don't want it this does clean up really easily with acetone you can either buy apps if you can either use acetone nail polish remover that you buy from the supermarket or you can buy the acetone at the hardware store but it's the same thing either way it's just a little bit cheated a little bit more at the hardware store for a little bit less money than you get if you were to buy it at the grocery store all right and that's it looks pretty good the way it is now and I'm going to paint the other one and then I'm going to check this one when I'm done before I walk away just to make sure there are no drips anywhere this is what the doors look like after one coat of the general finishes gel stain so the can says that that it takes about six to eight hours to dry or and that's an optimal drying conditions or up to 24 hours so I think by the evening time I'll be able to paint coat number two on the front and then I'll let the whole thing dry for 24 hours before flipping them over and doing the other side now that does mean that the cabinet on the inside will be easier to do because in six to eight hours I'll put one more coat on and then it will be done in one day so just to give you an idea on how long this takes to do so six to eight hours before I can do the second coat since my doors are inside and I have optimal drying conditions it's I think it's 78 degrees in my house and no humidity because the air conditioning so I'm gonna let them dry and then I'll do the front sides again and then I'll be able to paint the back sides in about 24 hours what the cabinet doors will look like after two coats of the general finishes java gel stain and I was not planning on doing more than two coats but as you can see it needs it on some of the areas that are a little bit thin I do like a layered or texturized look to this gel stain but in this case I think it doesn't look intentional and so I'm going to touch it up but I'm not going to do a full coat over the entire door I'm only going to do the areas that need it the most here's what the cabinet box looks like after two coats of the java gel stain and as you can see it also has some areas that need touched up so I'm going to just do it on the areas that need it and not worry about the rest okay so once your gel scene has had about three days to dry it's time to apply your top coat and the products that I use goes along with the paint it's actually general finishes high-performance top coat like this it's a milky consistency it's then as you can you can kind of see there it's then and sort of cut the color of milk actually so the way you apply this is in very thin layers it only takes about an hour or two to dry in between coats so once you're to this point you're almost there even though I know it it's sort of a it's sort of hard waiting for three days for this to dry to get your room and your cabinetry pulled back together so I like to apply it in thin layers if you have any drips you want to make sure that you clean those up right away because they're heart once it dries it's just like the dull stain it will actually dry in a drip and you won't be able to get it off this portion of the project is very necessary though because it makes your stain able to be cleaned off with water or bleach or whatever and then your stain won't budge so it's a step that you do not want to skip I've had this can actually I've done several projects with this can I did it my bathroom cabinetry I did my kitchen cabinetry and then I also did a butler's pantry with it and I still have about a quarter of the container so I've actually had this canned for about two years and it's gone a long way so even though I think it caused around $40 it's really worth it because you can do several projects with it so I'm going to go ahead and show you now how I apply the top coat okay okay so I'm going to apply this with a sponge brush just like I did the gel sink so I think it's the easiest you want to make sure that you stir this up pretty well mix it together and then as you can see it looks about like skim milk and then you just lightly apply it to your cabinet making sure that you clean up any of the areas that look too white or too milky you don't want to leave any of that behind you want it to look nice and clear you will have some areas that are a little bit more noticeable than others but just try to make sure that you get your paint really even and this is what I was talking about with the drifts if you see that right there if I were to leave that to dry like that it would not it would look like that one it was once it was dry so you want to make sure that you get all of those areas smoothed out and that you we'll check it before you walk away just to make sure that nothing has dripped or budged I'm going to do it just like I did the gel stain and sort of thin even layers and then like I said once it's done you'll want to go back and just double check it just to make sure that everything looks good so I'm going to continue on and I'll show you what it looks like when it's all finished okay so now that my cabinet doors are completely dry it's time for me to reattach the hardware and I'm going to do that with them laying on the ground instead of trying to do it with them hanging in the air as I told you before I labeled the inside of the holes where the hardware go and then I also labeled the inside of the actual hardware itself and top left and top left is basically my marker you can do this any way you want but I just used a sharpie marker you don't have to do it in here especially when you only have two doors but I wanted to show you how I do it in case you have a larger project like a kitchen or something it's really important that you keep track of which door goes where and which Hardware goes with the door so like I told you just a second ago I'm going to go ahead and attach the hardware while it's laying on the ground instead of trying to do it while it's up in the air which means the last screws to be attached will be these and these are the ones that go right through the middle here into the cabinet itself so what we have is three to three screws total to one in each side here and then one in the center so I'm going to go ahead and attach these the hardware to the doors and then after that we'll attach the doors back to the cabinet okay so I have my hardware reattach to my doors and now I have to do is find the original hole where the hardware was before in the cabinet and then lift it up and then insert the nail right back into the hole where it was before that I'm going to use a regular Phillips head screwdriver for this but it goes a lot faster if you have one of those cordless mini drills I wouldn't use a high power drill for a project like this because you wouldn't want to accidentally strip your screws you don't need something that powerful I actually do have a mini screwdriver but since I live in a household with boys a lot of times my tools grow legs and walk off on their own so mine is missing and I'm going to do it the old-fashioned way unfortunately I can't do it while holding the camera so I'm just going to I'm going to lift it up and start it into that hole get it started then I'm going to do the bottom one and then I'll tighten them both up while I both hanging on to the frame okay so I got the doors back on and here is what the cabinet looks like when it's all finished you want to make sure that when you put the doors back on you get the screws in the center nice and tight if they're loose at all when you go to swing your doors open and close it will make sort of a clunking noise so you might don't be surprised if you break out in a little bit of a sweat getting those things tight because they need to be really nice and tight but all-in-all this project can be done in about a weekend and as you can see it's totally improves the look of the cabinet thank you for watching if you like this tutorial please subscribe to my youtube channel add decor sauce and check out my blog at WWDC um