Stained with a honey oak stain and then polyurethane. The bare wood soaked up the stain like a sponge, so best to do small sections at a time. I noticed a fair amount of wood filler spots where holes were obviously filled, but these were small and generally confined to a smaller area. The table itself is fairly sturdy and is solidly constructed. Put it together with the included hex wrench, my screwdriver, and a cordless drill. Like others, I found the holes for the bottom shelf supports had not been drilled out. I elected to drill small pilot holes to avoid splitting the wood and highly recommend everyone do the same. It may go together without drilling pilot holes, but why risk it.
A tip/I stained and applied polyurethane by setting the table on 4 small 5/16 or 1/2 inch machine nuts/one for each leg. I used the top of the cardboard box the table came in as an underlayment. In other words, I put the cardboard down, then the table, and then lifted each leg of the table and put a 5/16 or 1/2 inch nut under each leg. You can really use anything, so long as whatever you use is smaller than the width of the table leg. This allowed me to raise the table up a small bit and apply stain and polyurethane without the legs sticking to the cardboard.
Decent table/stains well, wife likes it!
Stained with a honey oak stain and then polyurethane. The bare wood soaked up the stain like a sponge, so best to do small sections at a time. I noticed a fair amount of wood filler spots where holes were obviously filled, but these were small and generally confined to a smaller area. The table itself is fairly sturdy and is solidly constructed. Put it together with the included hex wrench, my screwdriver, and a cordless drill. Like others, I found the holes for the bottom shelf supports had not been drilled out. I elected to drill small pilot holes to avoid splitting the wood and highly recommend everyone do the same. It may go together without drilling pilot holes, but why risk it. A tip/I stained and applied polyurethane by setting the table on 4 small 5/16 or 1/2 inch machine nuts/one for each leg. I used the top of the cardboard box the table came in as an underlayment. In other words, I put the cardboard down, then the table, and then lifted each leg of the table and put a 5/16 or 1/2 inch nut under each leg. You can really use anything, so long as whatever you use is smaller than the width of the table leg. This allowed me to raise the table up a small bit and apply stain and polyurethane without the legs sticking to the cardboard.