When I custom created my office with leftover cabinets from a showroom display, I choose blue for the wall color because I wanted it to help lessen the orange color of the cabinets. It helped, but they were still orange.Over the years I’d thought about painting them, but I’ve painted laminate bookshelves before and the results weren’t that great. Sure, right after painting them they were fine, but the constant use caused the shelves to start peeling over a period of time, not good. I even gave it another shot when I painted a laminate amour for my bedroom, it still looks fine after five years, however, it doesn’t get much wear and tear like an office would.

About a year ago I heard about gel stains, General Finishes gel stains to be specific. I knew I’d be remodeling my parents house, their kitchen cabinets and island to be specific and since they wouldn’t let me paint their cabinets (they had serious trust issues, which I understood as they hadn’t lived around me for 26 years and hadn’t seen what I could do–I forgave them), so I talked them into staining the cabinets with gel stain.I gave them the general idea on how to apply the gel stain, and then left them to it.

Now, don’t give me that look, you know what look I’m talking about, the one where your mouth is gaping open cause I just left them to do it–that look. I did help as much as I could, but in my defense I had a book to finish up. Last November was crazy busy with doing the NaNo Writing challenge.

Anyway, they stained it to the depth of color they liked, and it turned out great. Now, with that said, my mom has mentioned that maybe she’d like to paint the cabinets because she saw how great the cabinets came out with the Kingswood remodel. Guess I know what I’ll be doing in the spring/summer of 2015. Lol!

Okay, so back to the staining of the laminate office cabinets. I tested it out on my bench seat, aka, holder of my printers and stuff. I first applied it with an old sock, and then used my favorite Purdy brush to smooth out the lines the sock application made. One note, you’re gonna need disposable rubber gloves, lots of them. This product is sticky, and whatever brush you use to get rid of the streaking, well, even after soaking my good brush with mineral spirits and brushing it out, it’s not my staining brush. Well worth it though.

I’m not done with this project yet, so stay tuned when I get motivated again to finish up the other half of the cabinets. You won’t want to miss this when it’s all done.