We originally purchased this coffee table to replace the one in our family room and loved that we could stain it to whatever color we wanted. Sadly the stain turned out kind of splotchy due to there being a waxy coating in certain areas so we had to sand down and redo certain parts. We thought that since it's billed as ready to stain we wouldn't need to sand it down but if you intend to paint or stain it sanding is apparently necessary which was disappointing.