How can I turn a light birch color dining table into an espresso color.?
You may have a very hard time finding anything that will stick to a laminate. Even if you do, since it doesn’t sound like it’s real wood, it’s going to be difficult to get a darker wood color, since it does not have the texture and pores of wood. I would not put a lot of faith in your planned approach. Even if I did think it might work, I’d run a test underneath or somewhere else before committing to top and center of table. I have done a lot of espresso finishes, but always on bare wood. That said, to get the look right (for the specific application, I’ve generally had to pre-stain with a dark red, then apply either a very dark stain or even a thinned black enamel to get it to look as I wanted. Even the espresso stains don’t seem to have enough red in them for me, but that may just be my interpretation of espresso. I have also touched up a number of espresso finishes that had little red in them.
