We are having a bedroom fitted but wish to keep the old bed as it holds sentimental value. Its made out of light coloured soft wood and the bedroom material we have chosen is Dark, so what are the options to change the beds colour?

I expect that wood stain is the only way, but my question is, can it be done commercially? IE: Can it be dismantled and dipped in something or is it still literally a tin of stain and a brush job in 2007?

 

You can buy timber stain in a pressure pack can that you just spray on and let dry (over here that is ).
what you will find is the timber might allready have a coat of something on it to stop the timber going gray and any hand marks tarnishing the timber

 

waxing's good.....bit of prep work first (light sanding down).....u can add more coats (light to dark) to find the affect ur after..........

 

a couple of things you need to sort first:

first you need to know what wood it is, as certain woods will take certain finishes, stains, etc without looks strange and others will soak up stains and finishes and polishes making them look blotchy

then you need to knon what finish has been put on it already, if there is any, as, again, different stains will react differently to other chemicals if you apply them over the top of one another

from what i've seen on new yankee workshop, darkening will require and oil or a wax coat on the main as opposed to a varnish or a finish, and the more coats you add, the deeper the colur and lustre becomes

and there is also the method of application as well, brush, cloth and foam brushing all have different methods of changing the hues, and there are some which you have to apply and then leave for a while before wiping off the excces and then leaving it to dry before giving it another coat and so on and so forth, again, this depends on the type of wood you have they all have different soak times

it also requires shed loads of elbow grease as norm has sometimes put on 3 or 4 coats of finish before applying a further several coats of polyurethane over the top to seal it all in and give it a shine as well

all them shows (17 series and counting) and finaly something i can put to use

 

what dojj said.. for once i agree!

 

If you dismantled it and sanded it down you could get it sprayed at a funiture restorers.

It could be stainied pretty much any colour you want and then sealed in with bartop lacquer.

Staining successfully does depend on what wood it is, but I've done pretty much everything over the years (walnut, mahogany, maple, beach, polar, cherry, oak, beach, chestnut, pine) It is a slight problem if the rest of your wood in the bedroom is dark mahogany and your bed is pine for example, using the exact same stain on each will give differewnt results obviously.