Stains are...Good...?

So...the desktop.

Bare wood.  Bare, beautiful red oak...almost like a blank canvas.  Almost, except that God's paintbrush has already miraculously and gorgeously streaked this canvas with swirling, graceful veining.  That I do not want to ruin.  That I'm sure I'm going to ruin.  Because stains?

 ...are like lipstick.  They just...don't look right.  To me.  Like, other people can put on lipstick, and it looks magical and dramatic.  When I put on lipstick, it looks like I took a crayon to my face.  Unnatural and ridiculous.

Besides, I used to be a professional clothes person.  Stains.  Stains are not generally considered a good thing in clothing.  They're more often considered, well, catastrophic.

My wood stains, the ones I've tried so far, are less catastrophic, and more...

...sad.

So what to do?  What to do.  Can't just leave it bare...right?  And we've worked too hard to just paint it.

We actually have made a choice...stay tuned to see it!