Final projects for the study

My dad stained 2 long shelves for me when I moved into my townhouse, way back when, and I've been moving them with me ever since.  The items displayed on the shelves have evolved since I was 19, from dolls to Amish souvenirs to sunflowers, and a few things in between...

 How was I ever this girly?

 or this cluttery?

...and now they display some of our favorite books in our updated study.  They just needed a quick update to be ready for their new home, nestled in this reading corner: 

I got to work this weekend staining them with Minwax's Red Mahogany 405.  Since the room is full of dark wood tones, I feel like the old version would look too juvenile for the space.  If the room was full of lighter tones, I would have hung them back as is.

The pics of the shelves above will have to serve as before pictures, because my camera had a temper tantrum and I lost the ones I took when I started the project.  I stained them both , waited 20 minutes or so, and then took a rag and wiped off any excess stain that didn't penetrate the wood.  I'm sure it's not professional looking, but it's my first staining project, and I'm just glad there aren't too many drip marks or blotches :)

After I let them dry for a few hours I went out to check on them and they were sticky.  According to the internets, this is either because it was humid and they needed to dry longer, or I didn't wipe enough of the excess stain off them.  I'm gonna assume it was the latter, so I gave it another pass with a dry rag to get more of the excess off.  They weren't sticky this morning, so we hung them up and adorned them with books and accessories!

Done!

The final project in the study was changing the light fixture - we took down the date gold fixture with gross mini-lampshades and replaced it with a rubbed bronze fixture with 3 frosted glass half-globes.  Much better!

I am so excited that this room is completely done!  It's been months in the making, and I'm sure we should have finished it sooner, but life got in the way...regardless, it's done now! :)