I came across an interesting article on staining wood from WoodSmith magazine. The article includes a link to downloadable pdf. They mixed their own stain color by blending off of the shelf stains, the recipes are included in the pdf. What caught my eye is that they did a two tone stain finish. It looks really nice.
On all of the projects that I have stained and varnished, I always used a single stain color. The color changes that the finished piece exhibited where from the grain and how the wood was cut.
I think that for my second daughter’s storage bed, I will use this technique. The foot board and head boards are made of raised panels. I will stain the raised panels a lighter shade than the rest of the bed.
Now, I just need to convince my wife that this will look really nice.
