If you want to take your cabinets to a lighter tone for example staining oak cabinets gray or giving them a stylish bleached look there is unfortunately no quick and easy option.
Can you sand and restain oak cabinets.
To achieve those effects you ll need to commit to a full scale campaign of stripping sanding and refinishing from scratch.
Begin by thoroughly washing grease and wax off the cabinets with tsp and water.
Before you stain the cabinets it s important to remove all the doors and drawers to make sanding and applying the stain easier.
By wiping with a tack cloth you.
After you ve cleaned the cabinets you will want to dry them with a lint free cloth and allow the surface to air dry at a minimum of 30 minutes.
Just a light and easy sanding with the alcohol to prepare the surface.
You do not want to sand down to expose the wood.
The stain will not work if the cabinets have any moisture on them.
Use a rag to work stain down into the pores of the wood.
Now experiment with a tinted polyurethane varnish such.
Use 120 grit sandpaper to lightly sand the cabinets.
Sanding oak cabinets with fine grit sandpaper is necessary to smooth the surface but in doing so you block the pores that would allow the cabinet to hold stain.
I have done similar work on staining cabinets from oak to a darker stain and the first time i experienced the peeling upon applying the second quote.
Next lightly sand and wipe off the dust with a tack cloth.
Yes you do have to sand but not aggressively.
Always sand in the direction of the wood grain.
I will suggest you sand it or use a paint stripper to remove the top layer finishing on the bookshelf.