DIY staining

I was so excited when I finally found the perfect dresser for our babies nursery... and before they came :). I swear I searched for months. I didn't change the color to much, but my goal was to make it look newer and not so worn looking and to fill the little pieces of wood on the bottom that you can see chipped off. This was my first time staining anything so I was a little nervous but luckily I'm addicted to pinterest :) and already had great tutorials to follow I used these two tutorials.....wood filler and staining. The first one I used only for tips on wood filler and the second I used the entire tutorial.
Here is what it looked like originally....

Supplies: 
Mask (especially if you are pregnant)
Sander
80 grit sandpaper
Wood Filler
Minwax wood conditioner
Staining pads
Minwax gel stain (in the color you want)
Gloves

I'll give you the basics of what I did and if you want more details I would head over to the tutorials I referenced.
Step One Lightly sand the dresser. Unless you are staining it a lighter color you don't need to sand it that much. My dresser was delicate so I just took my mouse sander, with 80 grit sandpaper and just roughed up the surface a little.
Step Two Put the wood filler in the chipped parts on the bottom and a couple of cracks on the top.
Step Three After I had let the wood filler dry for the recommended time I sanded it down so it was flush with the rest of the dresser.

Step Four Condition the entire piece
Step Five Rub on the stain. At this point I got really frustrated cause although the wood filler said it was stainable it was still very noticable. So I had to improvise. I would let the stain dry and then just do another coat only on the parts that I had filled. I probably filled the wood filler parts like six times. I just kept it in my garage and every eight hours or so I would take a small foam brush and only stain the small chipped parts. Once the wood filler areas were matching the rest of the dresser I did one final coat of the entire dresser and here is the result.....

Most people also change the knobs, but I loved the old fashion look of them and thought it would also be nice to save the money. I'm pretty happy with the results :) I am a perfectionist though and could tell you I almost re stained it because of certain parts but once put in the room you can't even hardly see those spots, Greg thought I was crazy to think of redoing it and he was right. So if you are like me let the little things go :). I am going to have to learn this eventually when I have two little munchkins running around my house, luckily for now I have Greg to remind me.  

nursery sneak peak

Here is a glimpse of our babies nursery (just for you Lindsey :). I still want to do a TON with it, but at least now it is livable. I just barely finished their dresser last week which was a huge relief to get done. It took me forever to find one that fit the space and that I loved. Pictures to come and a tutorial on how I fixed it up. Their room is pretty small so it was hard to get pictures but you get the idea....

Plans that are still in the works for their room.....curtains, wall hangings, fabric bird mobile, decorative mirror, paint lamp, bed skirt and different crib sheets. Maybe if they stay in there for three more weeks I will have time to get it all done. Not counting on it though :)

honeydew