Experience with staining furniture?

[gummy]

Ugh I'm so frustrated right now I could cry!

My mom gave me my nursery dresser and it screams 1983 oak.  I decided I was going to paint it so I've been painstakingly cleaning, sanding, filling holes/gouges etc.  I picked out the paint and then changed my mind and decided I'd stain the top a dark walnut and paint the rest an old white. 

I even practiced the staining on scrap wood as I have no experience with staining at all.  All was well, or at least I thought it was.  Turns out the wood filler I bought is paintable not stainable ughhhhhhhh.  It was fine when I was going to paint the top but I forgot about that little part when I changed my mind to staining it.

So now the top is a beautiful dark walnut stain with horrible little light blotches all over

Anyone know how I can fix this?  I'm assuming I'll be sanding down those areas again to get it to bare wood?  I can't dig out the wood filler though so how do I get it to accept stain?

I want to cry

[heygrey]

can you gouge out the wood filler and refill with stainable? that's my best suggestion.

on a more involved note - if the shape of the edges would permit, and the places where you wood filled weren't too deep, can you plane down the top so there are no more filled holes and then stain?

[TBM]

You could use a gel stain to go over the entire surface. It will cover the spots that won't take stain (gel stain doesn't soak in, it coats it like paint), but make take a few coats before it looks even.

[gummy]

Ok I sanded down the spots with 80 grit and eventually smoothed it out with 320 grit. I dug out the larger pieces as best I could with a knife. It worked ok and I've re-stained those areas. Looks like it's taking much better.

I think I was panicking last night but it ended up not being so bad!

Thanks ladies!