staining an ikea table

[Colin]

I order the above will it be easy to stain antique pine to match my kitchen>

Thanks The DIY Dunce

[Rod]

I have an old-fashioned view that staining is the process of applying a colour to bare wood. (Whether that colour is dispersed/dissolved in water or in a spirit base.)

The table you ask about is already finished with a polyurethane/acrylic lacquer. So you cannot stain the wood. But you could apply a coloured lacquer/varnish on top of the existing finish. Never having done that myself, I'll leave something else to give some advice.

[Roger Mills]

No! It's already sealed with polyurethane or acrylic lacquer - and won't take stain.

[ransley]

Its finished and sealed, if it was bare wood a Shellac base sealer would be used so stain would go on evenly. Now you can strip it and it will be a hard mess since its a Laquer, or try a stain-varnish, but if you never did it dont learn on it. Its pine it will yellow on its own over years, if you give it a few coats of OIl Poly that also yellow over the years, but slowly. Buy unfinished, use a Pre stain, then stain on softwoods.

[Rod]

Not quite sure where in the description of the piece it says it is pine?

"product description & measurements Table top/ Drop-leaf: Solid birch, Clear polyurethane/acrylic lacquer Drawer front/ Drawer back/ Underframe: Solid birch, Clear lacquer Drawer side: Solid birch, Birch plywood, Clear lacquer Drawer bottom: Fibreboard Part 01: Steel, Galvanised"

I do not have much experience of lacquered/varnished birch but I think it tends towards a relatively pale yellowish colour as it ages. (Contrast the strong orange of most pines.)

[ransley]

But with modern acrylic laquers it wont change color that you will notice in 10 years, right , its Birch.

[Steve Walker]

No. Buy an unfinished table if you want to stain it.

[stuart noble]

Trying to modify the colour of factory finished furniture is always a bit of a gamble because you don't know (exactly) what the finish is and how it was applied. The "original" formulation of Briwax should cut through and gently tint pretty much anything because it's based on Toluene. The P7 shade was often used to match old pine.