January 29 2023

How To Neutralize Orange Oak – No Bleach

Good Vibes Blog, Tables and Night Stands

If only orange oak would stay a beautiful light color as it does when freshly sanded. As soon as it is touched with top coat, as you know, the orange color pops out of hiding. And it’s not that I don’t absolutely adore it’s luscious wood grain. I do!

The goal for my style of white wash is to produce a translucent sandy beach color while maintaining visibility of the wood grain. But not any ol’ white wash does the trick to minimize the orange. Adding white to orange result in light orange.

Ever try to white wash cherry wood? It turns pink! So how does one get that sandy beach color wood, without bleaching AND take the edge off the orange and red tones?

Use the Color Wheel

Combat orange and red tones using the opposite color on the color wheel. *Add just a few drops of ordinary water base craft paint in to the white wash mixture.

4 Easy Steps

Start with Raw Wood Surface: White washing works on raw wood, freshly sanded. This doesn’t work on pieces with a sealant, top coat or wax on them. Don’t apply any wood conditioner after sanding – I did and it repelled the white wash solution. I managed to continue without much trouble.

Mix 50/50 White Wash Solution: A little goes a long way. For the top of this table, I used 1/8 cup white paint, 1/8th cup water then added 3 or 4 drops blue craft paint.

Apply: Brush in generous even strokes with the wood grain, one section at a time without letting it dry. Keep a water spritz bottle handy just in case.

Wipe Off: using a clean soft rag, as much or as little as you want, to get the desired white tone. I went with a very translucent tone, just enough to take the orange edge off, so most of the white wash solution was wiped off. There is lots of flexibility in the process to remove more or less white wash using water spray and reapply or let it dry for a 2nd application – Yay! Top coat as usual.

I robbed this technique from a professional wood floor refinisher on the internet. I figured it should work on furniture and it does! This blogger has great information and great before and after images.