I built two night stands for my married daughter. She wanted to have them painted so I built them out of Poplar. After she saw the completed project she changed her mind and asked that I finish them with a stain or dye and then varnish. Had I known that at the beginning I would have chosen a different wood to build them out of. In any event I did some research and testing and settled on an Aniline dye and a wipe on varnish. This seemed to give the least amount of blotching.
Well to make a long story short, I did not like the blotchiness of the bottom but the top seemed to come out fairly well. I went ahead and sealed the dye with Shellac and then called my daughter and explained my dilema. Actually it was worse than that as I hated the blotching and so we settled on a painted bottom and a finished top. She chose an ivory color.
Here is my project:
There are 58 mortise and tennon joints in this project, some of which I cut by hand just to keep my skills up. I did learn one thing in building this project and that is never to choose a dark stain when building a project with poplar.