Have you ever had a vision of exactly what color you would like your wood project to be stained only to find that they don’t make that color stain? This happened to me when I built a dog crate step stool for my mom’s dog. I just knew that it needed to be a cute teal color but I could not for the life of me find teal colored wood stain (so disappointing)! That’s when I went to the old drawing board and came up with a plan! Turns out you can very easily and cheaply make your own colored stain out of almost any regular paint! The only problem with this plan was there were too many colors to choose from!
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What You Need!
- Regular Paint
- Water
- Foam Brush
- Rag
- Nitrile Gloves (if you don’t want to get paint on your hands)
- Paper Plates or Bowl
Since this was a small project I bought a sample paint from Lowe’s for only $4! This was perfect since I knew I wouldn’t need a lot of paint since I would be watering it down. After staining the step stool I still have at least 3/4 of the container left which has me planning what I can paint next!
What to Do!
The first step in this REALLY easy project is to decide how much of the wood grain of your piece you would like visible (see below picture).
Right Column – Light Wash
- Combine one part paint and two parts water
Middle Column – Medium Wash
- Combine equal parts of paint and water
Left Column – Opaque Wash
- Combine two parts paint and one part water
I used the medium wash for the stool because I wanted the color to pop but I also wanted to see the a lot of the wood grain.
After you have mixed your paint and water in the consistency that you chose, use a foam brush and paint the stain onto your piece.
Then, use a clean rag and wipe off the stain you just painted on. See how you can see the grain of the wood now? Make sure to not paint too big an area at one time or it will dry before you can wipe off the excess stain.
Continue painting and wiping off the stain for the rest of your project.
Finally, after the stain completely dries you can add polyurethane to help protect the stain. Just FYI the Minwax fast dry polyurethane is amazing and what I use on all my projects!
There you have it! You have now been given the knowledge to stain furniture any color your heart desires! Just think of all the endless possibilities now that you can make your own colored wood stain! I know I have!
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