Stain a Black Buffet Brown to Match New Wood Table?

A.,

is the buffet REAL wood or is it a laminate? If it's real wood? sand it down and stain it to match.

If it's laminate? Paint it.

are you willing to put in a ton of time and effort, risk ruining your buffet and still not be able to get a good match?
you'll have to sand ALL the black off the buffet, which is a huge task even if it doesn't have fancy scrollwork on it. then you'll have to play with the stain, because even if the color is perfect in the can you won't know how it will interact with the stripped wood of the buffet and how close you can get it to the table without a trial and error period.
i mean, does it look awful? black tends to be okay under most circumstances. have you tried putting a runner, or silk scarf, or pretty candle holders on it to dress it up without going so drastic?
khairete
S.

I would likely put a scarf over the top and leave it. That's days and days of labor and it still might not turn out right. Lightening black is hard to begin with, even with clothing. If you sand the black away you're losing wood. If you strip it away then you're still going to have dark spots and lighter spots.

If you absolutely can't stand them in the same room consider moving one to another room. A buffet can be used for many different things. Look up redecorated old furniture or finding new uses for old furniture. There's another name for it but it's not coming to me right now.

Decorators say you should always have one piece of black in every room. Could this be yours? Perhaps with a wonderful brown runner, to coordinate not hide, the color?

Put a table cloth on one or both.
Striping and refinishing to match isn't going to be easy.

If you want to be so matchy matchy, I would paint both the same color and not try to get one to match the other. I could be a much easier solution than trying to strip and paint or stain to match.

Good luck with this seemingly labor intensive endeavor and God bless you and your efforts.

I'm a huge fan of spray paint. LOL.

What is it made of. Most black furnature is made with lesser quality wood with black veneer over it. The veneer is usually not wood.

Unless the wood is the same as the table the buffet will not match the table. I suggest you go for a compatible look that looks different than the table. There is no way the buffet will look even close to being a set.

You probably won't get it to match, you might get close, but that won't look good. So since it won't match, you should either put a cloth over it, or paint it a different color altogether. A pop of color is nice in a room. Brown paint won't match, and will not likely be particularly attractive.

I stripped and sanded and stained a dresser. Back in my 20's and hardly knowing what I was doing. The sides and top and drawers were all flat - nothing detailed about it, so stripping it was fairly easy - I used one of those horrible (probably very toxic) liquid strippers (be sure to use safety glasses) and with some sort of tool I scraped off the paint/stain that was on it. Sanding it - I had a handheld sander and that got rid of any remaining paint. And then I painted it. I think you were supposed to put a clear coat on top of that, but I never did. It's in one of my kid's bedrooms. It looks very rustic! But that was me with no Google. I'm sure if your buffet is pretty basic you could do it, especiallyif you enlisted someone's help who knows what they are doing. If you wanted it to be perfect though, I'd get someone professional to do it. But I know women who do this for fun - I think there would be a lot of good ideas/suggestions on pinterest or internet. Depends how professional you want it to look. Good luck :)

My sister in law did this a long time ago--or tried to. She gave up. However, hers had ornate carvings that she just could not get into. I would take a picture of both to a store that has someone that knows how to do this and ask their opinion. If the buffet is varnished, it may be harder and take longer to do. You can get a stain/varnish stripper, sanding supplies for the right grade, and then get to work. Then you can stain it. To really make the stain last, you really should clear coat it as well, especially if it will be used.

You would need to strip off all the black stain (a lot of sanding) and then re-stain it to match your new table.

If you have never done this I would recommend talking to a professional and having them do it, it is a lot of time consuming work (but usually worth it).

Or you can paint it brown, make sure you gently sand it first and then use primer before the paint.

Sand it down and restain it. Get a scrap piece of the same wood to test your stains on so you can see what shade and how many coats gives you the best match. I recently did this but I went from brown to black. You do have to make sure to sand it really well.

If you don't feel like doing all the work to sand it down you can paint it as is with homemade chalk paint, it requires no sanding or priming no matter the surface being painted. To make it simply mix 1/2 cup warm water with 1/2 cup plaster of paris until completely smooth, and them mix in 1 1/2 cups of latex paint in the color of your choice. The first coat goes on streaky because it has nothing to cling to, but after another coat or two the results are beautiful and even. Make sure to lightly sand between coats if needed and seal with any furniture wax when done.