Can I stain wood that's been sealed in polyurethane?

Question

Am purchasing a house where the trim and doors don't match the floor. Floor is brazilian cherry, trim is pine. The windows and trim have been sealed in a poly. Can this be stripped and re-stained? If so, what's the easiest way to do this? Thanks!

Answer 1

I have had some luck with just painting over polyurethaned
furniture with Minwax Stain/Polyurethane one-step finish.
You can lightly sand the trim, and try it.
It's not doing it the hard way, but the dresser I had that was an ugly orangy tone, I painted with red mahogany and it looks great. I didn't even sand it, but I did rub it with steel wool after it dried and then put a second coat and steel wooled it again.
The final steel wooling was to cut the sheen, and I wanted it to look rustic anyway, so I like it.

Answer 2

You can do it, but it's a lot of work. The stripper is generally nasty stuff.

You have a couple of options. First off, trim rarely matches the floor. Think painted trim and oak floors or oak trim and tile floors. You could definitely learn to live with it! Even if you do strip and stain the trim it will likely not be an exact match to the floor anyway, since they are different species of wood.

You could paint the trim and doors. That's my favorite option because it will always and forever match anything you do and there's nothing to compete with the gorgeous cherry floor.

If you do choose to strip and refinish, you'll want to get some spare pine trim and fool around first with stains and stuff to see if you're even going to be able to get a look you like. Pine is very hard to stain as it doesn't take the stain evenly and tends to get blotchy.

If you're still gung-ho, prepare yourself. Find the least toxic stripper (there's an orange one) and apply according to the directions. Scrape down the poly and dispose of properly (let it dry and then get rid of it). Then wash down the wood with paint thinner. Sand it all. Wipe with a tack rag. Apply a pre-stain conditioner. Stain. Poly. Sand. Poly again.

Personally, I'd learn to live with it or paint it. It's going to be a LOT of work!

Answer 3

There is no easy way, you can either sand the wood down to the original finish, or use Zip Strip and apply a coat of that to the surface and scrape the poly and the stain off, then sand with 220 grit sand paper, apply desired stain and let dry then apply a coat of poly and let dry, lightly sand with 320 grit sandpaper and use a tac cloth to wipe off between each sanding and application of poly. You may have to mix a couple of stains together to get the desired color to match the floor as pine tends to take on a different color than hardwoods when you use stain. If you can find a piece of pine to do a sample test of the stain on it would be great, as yellow pine will take stain different from yellow pine, so it is a mix match situation to achieve the right combination of stain mixture. I have just refinished several pieces of furniture one was a antique dressing table that had the old dark stain on it with water damage and needed complete restoration, to achieve the orginal finish color I had to mix walnut and cherry stains together. I also refinished this past week two end table tops that required mixing to match the bottom part of the tables, I used walnut and early american stains mixed, so be prepared to do some testing on mixing your stains to get the trim to match your floor. Good luck, it really is alot of fun once you get started. You definately develope a eye for color matching!

Answer 4

here is my recommendation do not try to strip and re-stain how long would that take and will you get it right the first time, do what i do go ahead and take the trim off the wall throw it as far as you can and go buy new trim and stain it before you put it down the go back and touch up, trust me i tried it and i would rather spend money than 50 hours trying to make it look right and it never does

Answer 5

No, you must strip the wood of all finsh materials, and if it is a soft wood such as pine ,you must put wood conditioner on it and then stain, if you do not do this it will not stain evenly.the easiest way to strip is to buy a commercial stripper, but first u must take it to a car wash apply stripper and rub stripper with a nylon brush let set for 1 min then hit with high pressure water. on the doors put the stripper on the doors then coat with newspaper and let it set for about 3 min. then apply pressure wash. most people fight their selves to death, stripping paint ,when actually with a little stripper and high pressure it will all be gone

Answer 6

Theres a number on ways to fix this, yes it can be stripped and has to be before restaining, also will prob need to be sanded lightly before recoating stain and poly top coat, theres a orange paste stripper that seems to work good and its not to toxic to use, and of course i prefer Minwax stains,and there polyurethanes Good Luck

Answer 7

It would be easier, less time consuming and less costly to replace it. The poly probably inhabited the wood and you'd have to take it down so much to remove it, I don't think you'd get a clear or clean surface.
It's one of those jobs I would pass because you'd never be satisfied, it would give me a bad name.

Answer 8

Product called varnish stain.

Answer 9

trust me, even pro's really hate that kind of job.

you will just be wasting money trying to do it yourself.

it would be cheaper in the end if you replace your trim with new set.