Some of my errant thoughts over the last two weekends:
"This table is 100 years old... what if we damage it?"
"We just bought these chairs, yeah, they're unfinished but what if we muck up the stain and ruin them?"
"We've matched the stain as close as we could, but what if the chairs and the table don't look right together?
"Can you get polyurethane out of leg hairs, or will we need to shave his leg?"
At the end, though, it was worth every bit of the 100 degree days in the shop, the layers of stain and poly coating fingers and clothes (and yes, legs), the sanding masks and the ventilator masks as we applied the stripping compound.
And here it is, set and ready for Father's Day dinner with my dad. Yay!!