Not too long after we moved in here, I decided to stain our stair railings from the plain & boring oak that they were to something more rich & exciting. So, I bought some Polyshades by Minwax. Not sure how long this product has been out, but it is pretty neat in that it has stain & poly all in one step. You don’t have to do a lot of prep work to change the color of something & the results are pretty amazing. Thought some of you might like to see this project. It was very easy to do & only took about 2 or 3 days working a couple hours at a time. I didn’t tape off the spindles, but used a small cheap chipbrush that could be thrown away. Did I mention that I’m a lazy painter & hate cleaning brushes? Especially oil based paint brushes. So, you can buy these chipbrushes very inexpensively & throw them away without a lot of waste. I mixed 2 shades together: Bombay Mahogany & Royal Walnut. The Mahogany has a lot of red & I was trying to get more of a deep dark brown. It turned out a little more red than I wanted initially, but I’m still happy with the results. It’s a whole lot better than the boring somewhat blonde oak color we had to begin with. 
Here’s a pic of the railings before I started. Boring oak. Oak is not my favorite, especially this color. I have some old furniture pieces of oak that are rich & mellow, but the new oak in most houses today leaves a lot to be desired. No offense to any of you who love oak, it’s just not my cup of tea.
And here are the After pics. I think you’ll agree that they look a lot richer & have much more depth of color with this new stain. My railings were not shiny to begin with so all I did was wash them down before I started & then just stained. Keep a rag handy to wipe any drips.
You can see how they contrast with the floor. I wanted them to be darker than the hardwoods. This product is a little bit runny, so you do have to watch the drips as you are going along. I did one coat overall & then went back & added more where it was streaky. All in all, it turned out just the way I had planned & I’m very happy I did them. This color above on the railing is very accurate to how they look in person.
They aren’t quite as orangey-red or streaky as this pic shows with the flash, but here’s a closeup. I’d suggest you get small pints of any colors you are looking at & mix them until you get exactly the color you want. It doesn’t take a lot of stain either, so small pints, not quarts will do this job easily. I’m working on a small side table that is not real wood, so I’ll show you that one when it’s finished. I do notice that the Bombay Mahogany really does go on darker & more saturated than some of the other colors, like the Royal Walnut I’m working with now. So, the best advice is to experiment with the colors before you get started. I do think if you wanted a darker brown shade that you could easily mix one of the darker ones in with the Mahogany to get the look you want.A big THANK YOU to Angela at Cottage Magpie and Des at Peeking Thru the Sunflowers, for giving me the “You Make My Day” award. I’m so appreciate of all the awards I get, even if I don’t always pass them on. Thank you for the honor!
I love what you did. I the same color oak everywhere is giving it a bad name. Its a great hardwood and doesn,t have to be that same 80s color everywhere. I recently mixed bombay with black and got a darker more chocolate brown color, but be warned a little black goes a long way. All I did was stir both cans really well and then poured in enough black to top off the can of bombay and it cut the red nicely.
How has the polyshades held up? I used Generals Gel Stain in my bathroom and is not holding up. I lightly sanded prior to foing my bathroom. You say you didn’t sand first so I’m wondering if I can use your method on the next bathroom cabinet.
Debbie, I’m not in that house anymore, but it was holding up fine when I moved. I probably would not use it on cabinets, there are better products for that.