Above you can see a photo of where I left off from the first post; The assembled, unfinished book case that matches the one I made twelve years ago.
From that point I spent about 3 hours doing finishing sanding and patching of blemishes, and my first coat of natural cherry stain; this is a far cry from the final color I am looking for.
The second coat starts to darken it a little more. Now it’s time to let it dry so I can see how it settles in.
The third coat finally starts to turn it the red the original piece had when I made them. After this I let it dry over night to make sure the stain was fully settled into the wood.
After that I applied a couple of coats of polyerathane and the project was completed. You can see after the stain and final coats dried the finish is even and the color is very warm.
All that was left was to place it in the living, where you can see it matches perfectly. I will still let the finish cure for a couple of days before actually putting it to use. But the project is done with the exception of maybe some furnature polish.