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Need to stain the added pine wood that is on the top of this chest of drawers to match the rest of the chest. Don’t know what type of timber it is but would like to keep the whole thing in its natural colour. Any help would be appreciated. Thanks
Welcome to the Bunnings Workshop community @Lindy249. It's terrific to have you join us, and many thanks for your question about staining timber.
Matching new pine to an older, darker timber can be pretty tricky. Pine takes stain very differently to hardwoods, and even two pieces of pine can vary a lot depending on the grain and how they absorb the stain. You might be able to stain the pine to get it looking closer to the original timber, but it's unlikely you'll get a perfect match, especially since the existing timber has probably aged and changed colour over time.
I’d recommend taking a small sample of the existing darker timber (if you have any) and a piece of your new pine into your local Bunnings. One of our Paint Experts can show you how different stains will look on pine, and help you find the closest possible option. Sometimes, a combination of a stain and a tinted clear coat can help bridge the gap a bit more, too.
Please let me know if you have any questions.
Mitchell
I completely understand @Lindy249. Matching timber stain can be tricky.
Unfortunately, identifying a timber type from just an image is really tough and matching the colour isn’t as simple as picking the same shade. For example, if the timber is oak and you pick up an oak stain and apply it to pine, even though it might have a similar hue, pine stained with an oak stain won’t match oak timber exactly. You’d need to apply two coats of oak stain to the pine, and then one coat of oak stain to the oak itself to get somewhat of a close match — but even then, it wouldn't be perfect.
This is probably why the team at Bunnings had a bit of trouble providing a definitive suggestion. It's almost impossible to pinpoint a specific stain that would be a good match, even if we knew the timber type.
Were they able to show you available stains on pine samples? Typically, we have samples hanging up in the stain aisle or sometimes behind the paint desk. That would be the best way to compare different stains and get a feel for what will work best for you.
I would often suggest that a customer pick up a few different stains and try a small test section on a scrap of pine to get an idea of what it might look like. You might like to use the Cabot's step-by-step colour guide. It shows you all their stain colours and how they will appear on pine in one or two coats.
Mitchell
