Mix cherry stained pine w/ cherry plywood?

[Charles Li]

Is mixing cherry stained pine with arm-r-sealed cherry plywood (no stain on cherry) in a single piece a bad idea? I'm building a mud room bench and want a wainscoting back. To save some money I thought maybe use pine for the wainscoting and stain it to match. Will it just look wrong? I'm especially curious if the colors will clash as it ages. I'm not going for contrasting wood. Ideally the colors should look similar (trying to match cherry cabinets in room) . I'm guessing there will be variations in the ply and solid cherry trim anyway so even if I did cherry wainscoting it will be different? Or, am I just asking for trouble?

[Steve Baumgartner]

Is mixing cherry stained pine with arm-r-sealed cherry plywood (no stain on cherry) in a single piece a bad idea? I'm building a mud room bench and want a wainscoting back. To save some money I thought maybe use pine for the wainscoting and stain it to match. Will it just look wrong? I'm especially curious if the colors will clash as it ages. I'm not going for contrasting wood. Ideally the colors should look similar (trying to match cherry cabinets in room) . I'm guessing there will be variations in the ply and solid cherry trim anyway so even if I did cherry wainscoting it will be different? Or, am I just asking for trouble?

I can imagine two problems. First, no matter what color you stain it, pine has a very different grain structure from cherry and that may be noticeable (experiment to see whether it bothers you). Second, the color of the cherry will gradually deepen with age, but the pine will not. So, you can either live with the pine eventually looking lighter than the cherry or stain it the color you imagine the cherry will someday become and live with the pine being darker in the meantime.

[Mark W Pugh]

I would use all of the same type of wood.

[Yonak Hawkins]

Not pine, but most of my cabinets around the house are cherry-color stained oak with unstained cherry panels. I don't try to hide the differences of grain or color so, as the cherry darkens, the contrast will increase. Also, I've put cherry accent strips in the oak to help tie it together, as well as maple accent strips in the cherry panels. Here's a sample :

unstained cherry & stained oak 007.jpgMaster Bathroom 020c.jpg

I can never get the color right with my crummy camera.

[Jim Becker]

I have successfully used some minor trim elements made from pine against cherry built-in, but I dyed the pine trim slightly darker than the "new" cherry so that they would be of a similar tone/hue once the cherry aged. Since I use a lot of cherry, I knew what to shoot for. You are not going to be able to do this with any kind of "off the shelf stain", IMHO...and you don't want to put a pigment stain on pine, either. It will never look right.

[Jerry Olexa]

If possible, try to use all one species of wood..Ive done it both ways but trying to match different woods can be challenging...

[Charles Li]

Thanks for all the tips. Definitely beyond my skill to try to pull off. Yonak those are beautiful but like I said beyond even attempting something that nice. Bummer it's that hard but I suppose that's why I couldn't find any info on it lol. What about baltic birch ply with pine trim & back then stain everything? I would think that's pretty common? I guess it's either that or back to the cherry and just do a more affordable design for the back.

[Jim Becker]

BB and pine solid stock look completely different in grain and take color differently, too. Birch will take a pigment stain "ok", but pine will not. Etc. You may be able to use dye and get similar results if you work with them separately. This is one of the challenges with material selection...your end result is directly related to that decision.

You could also go for a contrasting look...use the pine for the wainscoating but use milk paint or regular paint in a hue that gets you the look your want. That may be a better decision than trying very hard to make two very different wood species look the same.

[Charles Li]

I appreciate all the expert advice. I think I'll stick with all cherry and use plywood where I can to save some money. It's my first highly visible piece in the house so I'll give myself the best chance heh.