mahogany tinted pine doors and skirting...

[Carm10]

This is the the colour of my doors and skirting downstairs (kitchen and living room)...
I have painted the kitchen cabinets in Cornforth white (im so happy with it!) and i truly hate the mahony doors. I would like it to strip it and tint it with light oak tint (my dinning table and chairs are oak), but im worried that it would still look like pine (notches and all). i also wonder it the reddish mahogany tint will go away.

Id love the traditional feeling of natural wood doors. My husband said that he is not painting the doors white as we have this upstairs and doesn't look nice (in fairness they are a very glossy white).

Is this possible at all or do you have any advice i could use? TIA!

if you want pine to look like hardwood, I recommend colouring it with a spirit based (not water-based) wood dye such as Colron, Blackfriars etc. (Wilko do a good-value range that you can order online) and then varnishing it with a clear, uncoloured matt (not gloss) varnish. It does not fade.

This will enable the grain to show through.

You can use a red mahogany dye, but if you use streaks of teak, rosewood and similar colours, you can give the impression of a less piney effect. Although the instructions say swab it on with a rag, you can apply it with a (barely moistened) soft natural bristle brush, which you can wash out in white spirit. A small artists brush is good for graining. Apply a dark dye thinly after the main dye is thoroughly dry, or it will run. Brush out the base coat as far as it will go, any wetness will leave dark marks.

Despite their many names, the dyes are just variations on red, yellow, brown and black. Pine tends to go yellow.
You can mix different colours of dye in a jamjar to form a colours of your own choice. in this case, try to go round the whole room with one mix, or the change will show.

If you deliberately vary the colour, you can give the impression of planking. See pic. This is a sheet of hardwood-faced ply. The joint lines are drawn on with Stabilo marker.

Stripping the doors and skirting is a major work effort. In fact it would likely be easier and not much more expensive just to replace them unless you’re very handy.

My friend has similar and she looked into it, and she also hates them, they are done the dark red tinged wood colour and are very dated and give a dark appearance to the rooms, but so far due to the huge amount of effort required in removing stripping and staining she’s left it.

I guess you could buy a sander and go at it, but either stripping or sanding it’s a huge amount of work, would replacing them not be an option?

In fact it would likely be easier and not much more expensive just to replace them unless you’re very handy.

yes.

I did that (also because I didn't like the old doors)

But you need to get something better than hollow doors.

If you want a door you can stain or varnish it will need to be veneered, and if solid core, relatively expensive.

:-( yes it sounds like a lot of work, especially if i dont even know if it is going to look ok with a different tint! it might just be easier to paint them until i can afford new doors in a few years XD

@PigletJohn - that all sounded like really good advice, and I love what you've done with that floor, drawing on joint lines and doing different shades to look like original floorboards. Do you have a picture of that finished area? Just being nosy!

Do you have any budget? You can get these oak veneer doors for eighty quid from Wickes. You could then just paint the skirting out.

www.wickes.co.uk/Wickes-Marlow-Oak-4-Panel-Shaker-Internal-Door---1981mm/p/9000231457

@Bluntness100 that's the style of my downstairs doors, just mine are uglier XD i definitely cannot afford changing the doors downstairs (or kitchen and utility room minimum). I was looking at something i could do myself, even if it takes me some time and effort.

Great work John! Thats talent and experience. i currently have the doors in red mahogany and i would like to paint it in a light oak shadow to match table and chairs, but i heard than the lighter the dye it will keep looking like pine?

@PigletJohn that looks great. Really clever idea. Well done