Hey guys, we bought a house a few months ago, and pretty much started clean slate. Our latest overhaul is the living room. The fireplace appears to be oak, and just a tick over 100 years old. We have painted the walls, and trim, and most furniture, etc. We have started to go down the path to ditch the white furniture, and start to include more "dry oak" furniture.

That said, we want to treat the mantle such that matches the coffee table, which is "dry oak" from renovation hardware. We dont want to paint the mantle, nor do we want to stain darker.

Ive looked at some videos of stripping the stain from wood furniture, and potentially bleaching, or creating a weathered look. Heavily sanding the mantle problematic, given really fine dentil work, and scrolls. so we are trying to avoid a major sanding job. And to be honest, im not even sure how heavily the mantle is stained. You could just make out a light sheen.

Does anyone have experience in this? Is this something we should avoid and hire a professional?

 

Pics

 

Damn, that one is going to be a tough one. There's no way to get around sanding it if you want the same or similar finish but that detail work is going to be a giant PITA to get it done properly. It CAN be done with a dremel and small sanding wheel but it'll seriously take forever to do. Another option could be to surface sand everything and get whatever you can out of the detail and leave that part dark, it'll provide a good contrast to the dry oak look.

In regards to the dry oak look...how stable is that? I'd imagine it'll crack and splinter unless you at least oil it no? You can always go for a matte finish as well if you don't want to oil.

 

Have you looked into Liquid Sandpaper? works well on intricate pieces.

 

didnt know about that ^^. similar to a paint thinner, i suppose.

What i have seen so far seems to be a two step process - paint thinner, then bleaching.

I suppose i could use liquid sandpaper in lieu of the paint thinner. See how it looks at that point in time, then try the bleach method.

Bleaching is highly advertised as a proceed with caution DIYer job...which is why i brought it to the A-Zine first.

 

Word of caution on this stuff, it's not really a sandpaper, it's a deglosser and that might not be what you're looking for. Also, stain is not a covering like paint is. Unlike paint, stain actually soaks into the wood so you'll have to physically remove some amount of material before you get to a virgin layer without any colorant. If you use deglosser, it will remove the surface material and leave you with a really blotchy looking result that would be worse than what you started with.

JMO.

 

just take your time and do it right. I've sanded a few items around the house that ended up expanding my colorful vocabulary ...

As much as it sucks at the time, the pride you get back when you look at it is well worth the headache. I would get a dremel with a ton of attachments (because you'll likely burn through plenty of them). Remember to enjoy the process. Don't go bananas and try to do it all in one night. Spread it out, even if it takes two or three weeks. You'll have to go through the process in one way or another, so you might as well make it as enjoyable as possible.

 

Option 2 (or 3?) would be to just rip out the mantel and replace with a new one. That would be the easiest route.

 

That piece I posted is 4k....Option 4? - remove mantle entirely, and just buy an aged oak shelf. Patch and sand the stucco, repaint. Done.

Anyway....

So it sounds like ditch the chemicals, roll up the sleeves, and do it right with a dremel. I like that idea. That gets me halfway there...need to research how to bleach/age. It would be a travesty if I sand this down for 10 hours, then mess up the mantle with bleach.

 

Yup. If you don't already have an oscillating multi tool, they help immensely in corners and areas where a palm sander can't go but are too big for a dremel to do.

In terms of bleaching and aging, practice on some material before you do it on the real thing. Just go to HD and buy an 8ft oak board and learn on that before you try to do a mantel. Either that or just hit it with some matte poly spray and call it a day.

 

You guys sure I should sand and not use a chemical stripper? This looks like a beast of a job. Here's a detailed shot

 

I wouldn't use a stripper for stained finishes. Also, even with a stripper, you still have to scrape and sand off the remnants so it's not a totally free lunch with it.

Maybe call around to find a place that can walnut/bead blast a piece that big? Might cost a few hundred but it'll save a ton of time.

Edit: Oh and option 5: Remove everything, remove stucco, refinish with a new oak shelf and stone/tile/whatever. Done.

 

Ok. Armed with sandpaper, sander sticks, sanding qtips, and sanding sponges. Going at this by hand.

 

 

Did the front panel and top. About 3 hours in. All by hand.

Think im going to leave the detailed bits untouched. Not sure yet. Definitely not sanding the three crests across. All detail would be lost by sanding.

Still deciding in bleaching etc. or maybe a wood filler plus light stain mix.

 

Nice work!

 

 

Man. Finally done. Took close to 30 hours all in. I do not recommend this. I tried out multiple stain combos on side wood. But there was just no "sample" control for 100 year old mantle that was constructed from oak, pine, etc. and stained got knows what when, and how.

1. Sand down top, center panel, and side panels, 80, 100, 150, 220
2. Light sand detailed scroll work and dentil molding 320
3. Stain everything SunBleach to get first layer of "antique" feel
4. Stain everything Weather Oak. The Weather Oak oil diluted pulled up all of the color from the Sunbleach stain, and the whole mantle was blotchy green/blue (not photod). As a stained the Weather Oak, I was using another towel to quickly wipe off the Sunbleach stain color as it was pulled up, before it dried and ruined the entire mantle.
5. Back to sanding everything. 80, 100, 150, 220 (back to step 2)
6. Stain Weather Oak. Ended up blotchy again upon dry.
7. Back to sanding everything. 80, 100, 150, 220 (back to step 2)
8. Stain center and sides Special Walnut. It was dark enough to cover the blotchiness from all of the errors, but brought the color back to original (now back to step 1, not even step 2). But i was left with a uniform stain.
9. Without letting the Special Walnut dry, I started sanding it like crazy with 80 grit to get it to a uniform lighter color. PRESTO. It worked. The final look on the center panel was basically achieved by the art of sanding, not stain.
10. Stain Special walnut 3x on the top

DONE. The end result is okay. Not totally uniform. The sunbleach process, while a disaster, actually left a cool ghosting effect around the edges. It looks better in person. lol.

 

If you're getting blotching, you need stain conditioner... Guessing it's the pine that's causing you issues because that's an open pore wood vs the oak which is quite dense.

 

Oh man, sorry to hear about the issues but let's see some final pics and conditioner is a life saver.

 

The last pic above is final. I put an extra coat of matte finish after i took that photo, but it didnt change it much, just sealed it. It kind of has an antique'd look / ghosting effect around the edges, which I like. There is no more blotchiness. The blotchiness was just part of the process that I had to overcome.

 

Nice, good work now get going on that garage conversion