Does special walnut stain have red undertones?

Now that my niece’s room is completely finished (you can see it here if you missed it), I can focus completely on my own house and get things DONE! I’m feeling pretty motivated, which is good since one of the first projects I need to tackle is pretty big. Huge, actually. As I mentioned in this post, I’ll be tackling a big floor refinishing project very soon.

My Minwax Stain Colors Test Results

But before I rent the sander and get started, I need to decide on a stain color. I tested out four different Minwax stain colors on some leftover red oak floorboards that I had on hand.. I didn’t take the time to do any sanding or water popping/wood conditioning or anything like that, and I also didn’t add any kind of clear topcoat, so the color might not be exactly what it would be on my finished floor. But I do think this gives a very good idea of the colors.

I tested Minwax Jacobean stain, Dark Walnut stain, Special Walnut stain, and a mixture of 1 part Dark Walnut stain to 1 part Special Walnut stain. I wanted to get a look at the colors in different lighting, so the picture above was taken last night.

This next picture was also taken last night…

And then these next two pictures were taken this morning. We’ve had some really dreary weather lately, so unfortunately I still won’t be able to see the colors in the bright sunlight that fills these rooms during the middle of the day on clear days.

I ruled out the Jacobean stain almost immediately. On red oak, it just falls flat. I don’t really know what I mean by that, but it seems to have no life to it, and it appears to have a slight green undertone to it. I also ruled out the Special Walnut. It looks too light, too red, and too washed out.

So my favorites are Dark Walnut stain and the mixture of Special Walnut stain and Dark Walnut stain. If pressed to make a decision right this minute, I’d go with the mixture. Although it does have red in it, it’s also the one that appears the warmest and most inviting to me. And while it is kind of dark, that warmth keeps it from looking too dark, in my opinion.

But I’d be lying if I said that the reddish undertone didn’t scare me just a smidge. While it’s beautiful on a small sample, I’m trying to imagine it on all of the hardwood floors in my entire house. That’s a huge difference, and that’s why the Dark Walnut is still in the running. So my decision as come down to Dark Walnut…

Photo by Clean Design – More kitchen photos

…or a mixture of 1 part Dark Walnut to 1 part Special Walnut…

Photo by Dresser Homes – Discover traditional family room design inspiration

Interestingly, in those two pictures, the Dark Walnut appears to have more red in it. But I’m not going to drag this decision out and agonize over the choices. Let’s face it, either one of those colors is 1000% better than the orange I currently have. Am I right? 😀

UPDATE: I made my selection from the Minwax stain colors I tested and…

My refinished hardwood floors are finished! Click here to see how they turned out…

Kristi Linauer

Addicted 2 Decorating is where I share my DIY and decorating journey as I remodel and decorate the 1948 fixer upper that my husband, Matt, and I bought in 2013. Matt has M.S. and is unable to do physical work, so I do the majority of the work on the house by myself. You can learn more about me here.

I hope you’ll join me on my DIY and decorating journey! If you want to follow my projects and progress, you can subscribe below and have each new post delivered to your email inbox. That way you’ll never miss a thing!

Guest Bloggers Chris and Julia from ChrisLovesJulia  has a great post that breaks down how different stains can look based on the wood species that are being used. Follow along as this  DIY couple shares their findings, and tips imparts some helpful guidance to get you started on your next wood finishing project.

This post is sponsored by Minwax®. As always, opinions are always 100% my own. 

We’ve been wanting to do a wood/stain study for years now and in my head, I wanted to do every type of wood with about 20 different stains each. But with limited resources (not to mention space), we settled on 5 popular species of wood commonly used by DIYers, with 6 different stains; 2 light, 2 medium and 2 dark.

The wood types we chose also are vastly different, ranging from extremely soft (birch) to hard (red oak) with undertones all over the map. Not only does the hardness effect how a wood will accept stain (harder woods tend to accept stains better and more evenly) but also the natural color of the wood.

The ever popular and inexpensive Pine has yellow undertones.
Birch has pink undertones.
Poplar has green undertones.
White Oak has the most neutral undertones.
And I bet you’ll never guess Red Oak’s undertones. (Hint: Red)

To give each wood the best chance at sporting stain, we started our study with Minwax’s Pre-Stain Wood Conditioner. Treating raw wood with conditioner helps prevent streaks and blotches by evening out the absorption of oil-based stains. It can be applied over any wood but is especially necessary when working with soft or porous woods like pine, alder, birch, and maple. You’ll see just how necessary it is in a minute, because of course we took our observations one step further and only used conditioner on the bottom half  of each piece of wood so you can see the difference it makes.

We let the conditioner penetrate for 15 minutes and then wiped off any excess and removed the tape and got to work applying 6 different stains to all five of our types of wood.

As a reminder, here are all the types of wood in their natural, raw state:

1. Minwax Pickled Oak. This stain added very little color to any of the boards, (maybe slightly lighter with a tinge of green), but really brought out their natural color and grain. All of the wood types accepted the stain well, except the non-conditioned Birch side.

2. Minwax Simply White. Minwax recently came out with a Simply White stain and I’m in love with it! It really softened each wood tone and color while not masking any grain–like semi-opaque stains do. You can see clearly the wood’s color undertones (yellow, pink, green, neutral, red) but they aren’t nearly as pronounced. Both of the oak species took on a sort of Cerused look I’m very into. The green that is generally very pronounced in Poplar, turned into more of a warm gray. The unconditioned Birch side, again, struggled with accepting the stain, but you can also see the conditioned side of each board is slightly darker.

3. Minwax Golden Pecan. We chose to experiment with this stain color because of its mid-range tint with red undertones. The pine board looked the least natural with this stain. Poplar looked a little bit like watermelon. Birch did surprisingly well and the oaks were naturals. Naturals in a very red way.

4. Minwax Golden Oak. This is another mid-range stain color, but with a more neutral base undertone. Instead of the wood grains picking up redness, you can see they all went a very neutral brown. There is very little difference between the conditioned and unconditioned white and red oaks, but the other three definitely benefited from the pre-stain conditioner.

5. Minwax Jacobean. The first of the dark stains we tried was also the more neutral in tone. It delivered rich, dark brown tones. Every wood species benefitted greatly from the conditioner with this stain. The pine turned more gray than anything.

6. Minwax Dark Walnut. Last, is the redder of the two dark stains we experimented with. Although, no red came through with the pine at all. In fact, it looked almost pinky gray. The other woods took the stain well, with more redness coming out of the conditioned sides of the boards. The green in the Poplar board went to an almost black, like in the Jacobean stain–very stunning.

Lastly, we thought it would be beneficial to see all the same wood type with different stains in one picture. This will hopefully help you see how Pine, Birch, Poplar, White Oak and Red Oak’s undertones play with different stain undertones.

Like I said, I wish we could do 15 more of these! But I hope this is helpful. I think each wood species looked great with some stains and subpar with others.

What undertones does Minwax special walnut have?

Does dark walnut stain have red in it?

Does Minwax dark walnut have red undertones?

Is walnut stain cool or warm?