I bought a Billy bookcase (veneered MDF)from IKEA it was meant to go in
my son's room.
He already has seven pieces of furniture in there all 'antique oak'.
This is darker than the Oak veneer that the new piece is (does that make
sense?). It appears Vintage Oak is no longer a colour way for any IKEA
products.

I thought of 'painting' the new piece with a coloured (dark oak obs)
varnish does the panel think this is a viable option ?

I don't want to go down the 'sticky back plastic' route as rolls of SBP
are 2m whilst the unit is 2.02 M tall, and application looks/sounds like
a total faff

On 12/12/2022 11:57, soup wrote:
> I bought a Billy bookcase (veneered MDF)from IKEA it was meant to go in
> my son's room.
> He already has seven pieces of furniture in there all 'antique oak'.
> This is darker than the Oak veneer that the new piece is (does that make
> sense?). It appears Vintage Oak is no longer a colour way for any IKEA
> products.
>
>   I thought of 'painting' the new piece with a coloured (dark oak obs)
> varnish does the panel think this is a viable option ?
>
> I don't want to go down the 'sticky back plastic' route as rolls of SBP
> are 2m whilst the unit is 2.02 M tall, and application looks/sounds like
> a total faff
Is the veneer wood or plastic? If it's wood you could try sanding it
(very! lightly) to remove the lacquer and then apply stain, but test on
a hidden piece first because the veneer may be very thin or the stain
may not be uniform. TBH it's unlikely to look great so it's probably
better to look on feebay, freecycle, etcetera for one that's the right
colour.

nothanks@aolbin.com wrote:
> Is the veneer wood or plastic? If it's wood you could try sanding it
> (very! lightly) to remove the lacquer and then apply stain, but test on
> a hidden piece first because the veneer may be very thin or the stain
> may not be uniform. TBH it's unlikely to look great so it's probably
> better to look on feebay, freecycle, etcetera for one that's the right
> colour.

Billy is printed plastic on chipboard I think, never seen a tree in its
life.

I'd second the 'swap' recommendation, much less hassle. In the absence of
that I suppose a tinted varnish might be worth a try, since you aren't
expecting anything to soak into the surface like a regular stain would.

I'd try it somewhere inconspicuous first as it may look odd.

Theo

On 12/12/2022 14:21, Theo wrote:

>
> Billy is printed plastic on chipboard I think, never seen a tree in its
> life.

Most of it appears to be:

Basematerial:
Particleboard, Paper foil, Plastic edging

Side panel:
Particleboard, Paper foil, Melamine foil, Plastic edging

Plinth front:
Particleboard, Paper foil

Back:
Fibreboard, Paint, Paper foil

The oak versions do state:

Basematerial:
Particleboard, Oak veneer, Paper, Clear acrylic lacquer

I have something similar from Ikea with oak veneer but the veneer is
ultra thin and possibly the lacquer is thicker.

Perhaps use a dark semi transparent lacquer (or thin coats) to darken
the finish. The lacquer may cost more than the cost of the original
bookcase :(

--
mailto : news {at} admac {dot} myzen {dot} co {dot} uk

Theo wrote:

> Billy is printed plastic on chipboard I think

website states lacquered oak veneer (over particleboard of course) very light
sanding if you don't want to find *how* thin the veneer is ...

Theo <theom+news@chiark.greenend.org.uk> wrote:
> nothanks@aolbin.com wrote:
>> Is the veneer wood or plastic? If it's wood you could try sanding it
>> (very! lightly) to remove the lacquer and then apply stain, but test on
>> a hidden piece first because the veneer may be very thin or the stain
>> may not be uniform. TBH it's unlikely to look great so it's probably
>> better to look on feebay, freecycle, etcetera for one that's the right
>> colour.
>
> Billy is printed plastic on chipboard I think, never seen a tree in its
> life.
>
> I'd second the 'swap' recommendation, much less hassle. In the absence of
> that I suppose a tinted varnish might be worth a try, since you aren't
> expecting anything to soak into the surface like a regular stain would.
>
> I'd try it somewhere inconspicuous first as it may look odd.
>
> Theo
>

We’ve several items of Billy furniture (book cases mainly) in what were our
daughters rooms and in my study. They are a light wood veneer finish -
Maple at a guess in colour. Certainly not plastic, other than the panels at
the back of the bookcases. The veneer has a thin, satin, varnish finish.
Some of them must be 25 years or so old and still look all but new.

There is another range, Malm I think, which has a similar / identical
style. We have a couple of those in one of the spare rooms.

The veneer is thin, as most veneers are.

On 12/12/2022 11:57, soup wrote:
> I bought a Billy bookcase (veneered MDF)from IKEA it was meant to go in
> my son's room.
> He already has seven pieces of furniture in there all 'antique oak'.
> This is darker than the Oak veneer that the new piece is (does that make
> sense?). It appears Vintage Oak is no longer a colour way for any IKEA
> products.
>
>   I thought of 'painting' the new piece with a coloured (dark oak obs)
> varnish does the panel think this is a viable option ?
>
> I don't want to go down the 'sticky back plastic' route as rolls of SBP
> are 2m whilst the unit is 2.02 M tall, and application looks/sounds like
> a total faff

Swedes don't 'do' dark brown furniture :-).

Can you use wet and dry sanding blocks to carefully remove
the surface laquer then just get a suitable tin of Ronseal
wood dye to change its colour ?.

On 12/12/2022 6:57 AM, soup wrote:
> I bought a Billy bookcase (veneered MDF)from IKEA it was meant to go in my son's room.
> He already has seven pieces of furniture in there all 'antique oak'.
> This is darker than the Oak veneer that the new piece is (does that make sense?). It appears Vintage Oak is no longer a colour way for any IKEA products.
>
>   I thought of 'painting' the new piece with a coloured (dark oak obs) varnish does the panel think this is a viable option ?
>
> I don't want to go down the 'sticky back plastic' route as rolls of SBP are 2m whilst the unit is 2.02 M tall, and application looks/sounds like a total faff

The suggestion here is, you don't need to sand it.

https://poshpennies.com/how-to-paint-ikea-furniture-guide/

They use a shellac based primer, presumably as an interface
to aid a finish to stick.

https://poshpennies.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/04/zinsser-primer.jpg

That primer is pretty expensive, find a small can.

The White Billy might have a different surface texture than the Birch Billy,
so maybe a painting project like this would look better with
one than the other.

If the texture isn't going to be a match for oak, maybe you
could just paint the thing a "forest colour" to be complementary
to the existing oak colours.

Paul

On 12/12/2022 15:32, Brian wrote:
> Theo <theom+news@chiark.greenend.org.uk> wrote:
>> nothanks@aolbin.com wrote:
>>> Is the veneer wood or plastic? If it's wood you could try sanding it
>>> (very! lightly) to remove the lacquer and then apply stain, but test on
>>> a hidden piece first because the veneer may be very thin or the stain
>>> may not be uniform. TBH it's unlikely to look great so it's probably
>>> better to look on feebay, freecycle, etcetera for one that's the right
>>> colour.
>>
>> Billy is printed plastic on chipboard I think, never seen a tree in its
>> life.
>>
>> I'd second the 'swap' recommendation, much less hassle. In the absence of
>> that I suppose a tinted varnish might be worth a try, since you aren't
>> expecting anything to soak into the surface like a regular stain would.
>>
>> I'd try it somewhere inconspicuous first as it may look odd.
>>
>> Theo
>>
>
> We’ve several items of Billy furniture (book cases mainly) in what were our
> daughters rooms and in my study. They are a light wood veneer finish -
> Maple at a guess in colour. Certainly not plastic, other than the panels at
> the back of the bookcases. The veneer has a thin, satin, varnish finish.
> Some of them must be 25 years or so old and still look all but new.
>
> There is another range, Malm I think, which has a similar / identical
> style. We have a couple of those in one of the spare rooms.
>
> The veneer is thin, as most veneers are.

The veneer is ultra thin. You can see just how thin by looking very
carefully at the edges of one of the removable shelves.

There might be a darker lacquer you could apply on top but getting the
same colour and lustre as the original will be difficult and if you are
not very good at applying it will have runs and look a mess.

Incidentally old ones of the same veneer change colour slowly with age.
I bought a couple of new ones recently for my ever expanding library and
they are lighter than the now twenty year old ones in the same finish.

--
Regards,
Martin Brown