Why It Pays To Have A Great Family

My father-in-law has a huge workshop in their basement.  Tools galore, including things like power sanders.  We're planning on making him bring tools to utilize any time they come to visit (but shhh!  We haven't mentioned this to them yet!).  This summer it came in very handy, because he was able to help us deal with the library card catalog I bought G back in July.  G and I both helped a little, and his father sanded it down, we chose to stain it a dark walnut rather than paint it, and then his dad was kind enough to painstakingly poly it.  It was a humid summer so it took forever having to wait for cool days to work on it, but in the end we were able to take this:

and end up with this...

Because of the way the sun is hitting it you can see all the strokes and grain, but in normal (not warm yellow) light it's a darker walnut with a high gloss.  I love the way it turned out and have been searching for it's perfect spot in our home.