How-To: Reglaze Honey Oak
It's not news that honey oak and I are not friends (like here, here, and here). The guest bathroom remodel of course included honey oak that needed to be conquered. I have painted honey oak and loved the results, but this time I wanted to try something different. My goal was to make it look like wood-dark wood-but not dark oak that restaining would result in. The answer I came up with-reglazing. How do you think it turned out?
Before
The best part? So cheap....we did this entire cabinet makeover with materials we already had.
So this is how I did it......
Materials
Ugly oak vanity
Paintbrushes
Sandpaper
Orbital sander (not required but will make it so much easier)
Clear Mixing Glaze (I used Valspar)
Paint (I used paint sample from Benjamin Moore in Branchport Brown)
New Hardware
Wood Filler in color close to final stain
Empty container with lid for mixing and storing glaze
Polyurethane
If replacing hinges with concealed or euro hinges-
Drill
New hinges
Hinge template set
Clamps
How-To
1. Start with an ugly door with ugly hardware and ugly hinges. Wash it with soap and water. Remove the said hardware and hinges.
2. We replaced the external brass hinges with euro hinges that you cannot see from the outside of the cabinet. This added extra steps but in my opinion it is so worth it and totally modernizes the cabinet. In order to install these hinges some extra steps are involved. Home Depot and Lowes sell a template and special drill bit for using these hinges and the couple of bucks was definitely worth it. (We also did this in the kitchen)
Derek marked the spot to drill using the template (he centered it on the hole from the previous hinge.)
And then drilled with the special bit. 
Leaving this hinge hole-
But when you set the hinge in there, the old hinge hole on the side is ugly.
So fill it with wood filler in a similar color of the finish glaze. This step is my second least favorite of the whole process as it takes multiple fillings and lots of messy fingers (and maybe some cursing).
3. Now for my least favorite part- sanding. I used an orbital sander with a medium grit sandpaper on the large areas which was not so bad. But then I had all the edges and crevices to do....by hand....very thoroughly....which sucked. This step is the primary reason I could have never have used this method in the kitchen. It took forever and I only had four doors and two drawers. I did not worry about get all the honey oak color off, but the coat of gloss poly had to go from everywhere if the glaze was going to stick. Here is a door all sanded-
Here is my mixing can and measuring device that just might be a shot glass. I promise that it won't go back into the bar.
I put three very thin coats of glaze on all the doors and cabinet face. By thin coat I mean I was almost drybrushing to make sure it went on evenly.
5. To protect the finish I then put on three very thin coats of MinWax semi-gloss polyurethane.
6. Add the new hardware and hinges. We used hardware that had the same drilling space as the old hardware so we did not have to refill holes.
Put it all together and you get this- 
I like it because it still looks like wood and not just brown paint sitting on top of wood. But is better than stain because it minimizes the oakey grain. At least I think so....but I may be delusional because I want to think all that sanding was worth it.
Update: Complete Guest Bath pics can be found here.
