General Finishes Water Based Wood Stain, 1 Pint, Espresso

For a beginner, this worked well for a home DIY project at an affordable price. It's easy to apply, and the finished product looks great!

rich and thick color, not watery at all like the cheaper stuff at box stores

Thought this would help stain our cherry wood cabinets and online this looked closer to cherry than other types we saw, but it is a darker shade of brown - Just FYI. Great product that went on smoothly and really stains the wood well. Make sure to go in strokes in the same direction.

It worked as expected. The color is almost as if a professional did it. This is the best painting for wood. I highly recommend it. It went from light brown to expresso brown and it looks beautiful and shiny.

It covered well, but was very different from other water based stains that I have used.

This review is for anyone researching how this stain will look on solid wood floors.I bought unfinished 5” #2 common red oak because I wanted to finish it myself. I put in the floors, spending countless hours sanding (with a floor buffer, the drywall sander didn’t work very fast), to finally be able to stain with water-based stain and finish with a half & half tung oil from milk paint.I wanted to add a review for someone who is researching this and make some suggestions.I had to have a water-based stain for the tung oil. Tung oil is a natural finish that nourishes it instead of covering it with a plastic layer (ahem polyurethane). I have nothing against polyurethane but if I wanted to walk barefoot on plastic I would have gone with the much easier, much cheaper option of luxury vinyl plank just saying.Actual Walnut was not an option. I did not have enough in my budget for that. I went with the cheap option that being red oak, however I am not overly fond of orange, yellow and red being in my floor. I wanted it to be like a medium to dark-ish brown. Thus the walnut stain. I tested out the stain on a few pieces of my wood floor and decided I liked it. I must say that I didn’t really care if it looked a lot like walnut. I was just wanting a deeper color.When I finally got to where I stained the whole floor, I initially wasn’t sure I liked it. It looked blotchy to me. I was almost to the point where I was going to sand it all off. However, I invited some family members who are known to give me their honest opinions. They told me I was being too particular and that they thought it looked good. I did use 240 grit and sanded lightly on the parts where I thought it was too dark. I am glad they did because it turned out great.Some things I suggest to future diy’ers.1. Thin out the stain with water. This will give you more time between sections of the floor.2. Stain with the grain of the wood from one wall to the other. I did this and it was the right choice.3. DO NOT try to stain the edges first. I did this in the living room and I could see where it overlapped. I tried to both buff it out with more stain and then I sanded it with 240 grit. It did disguise it, but I will forever know. Major regret.4. I suggest using a rag or a paintbrush. I tried using the paint roller for the stain. It did not work well getting into all the holes and cracks. It also did not apply an even coat. I and the person who helped me used a rag after that.5. Remember it looks better with finish. I am using tung oil but the same can be said for polyurethane.All in all I am happy with the result. And it DOES look like walnut after it is has been finished.

It’s a very dark brown/black stain color …best brand for this color is general finishes in my opinion they get the color right every time . If you need a dark brown no orange or red brown this is the one … I don’t like when a brown has mixed colors but that’s just my opinion value is here color wise money well spent no stickiness at all with water based it is pretty durable and I just used one coat because I like dark brown almost black color… for my dining chair seats went on with 2parts water to one part stain for me . I got quart but still have plenty for other projects left kinda expensive but love it easy to use and no surprises with colors thanks to General Finishes .

Horrible to work with - we followed the instructions, watched all the videos, did everything we were supposed to do and the results are absolutely terrible. This is not our first attempt at staining either, so we know what we are doing. The stain was blotchy, much darker than the photos, and nearly impossible to keep a wet edge - it dries so quickly and is very hard to work with. Even after multiple coats, it looks awful. This was literally $50 down the drain. Luckily we can return the top coat - will be painting instead.