Stained. No, not the band.

This is a progression of the project I am currently undertaking, involving a piece of furniture I rescued from the swap shop and then attempted to stain. I removed the original stain, sanded it down, and then stained it a dark cherry brown color. Now, repeat... in reverse.

To make an incredibly long story short, I've never stained anything furniture-wise before. Perhaps because I've read enough Design Sponge "Before and Afters" over the past two years, I thought this would be a quick and easy DIY project. HAHAHA.

To save myself a step, I used MinWax two in one stain and polyurethane. Not so much of a great idea, because it just sits on top of the wood. This would work well with a flat piece of wood. Mine is rounded in weird ways. 

And no matter how carefully, slowly or fast I dragged my brush across the surface, the outcome resembles DNA. 

So it's back to the drawing board and I'm going the old fashioned route with stain and poly-U in separate cans. And although this has been incredibly frustrating, it's really quite the best way to learn how to do something new. Here's to trial and error!