I'm SO glad you didn't just slap a coat of white paint on it and call it redone. I get so mad when people take beautiful antiques and just ruin them with "shabby chic." I always call it the lazy persons furniture restoration.
Does the grain show up after you refinished them? It looks like it has a burl veneer on the drawers in the before picture, but I can't tell in the afters.
It's hard to tell, but it actually started out painted. It was brown with a yellow over it and they painted it to look like burl wood. Although on the mirror they did stripes WTF? I thought about trying to produce the same effect, but I'm not that good.
Part of the reason it took so long is because the wood probably wasn't really of the quality that you would stain, some pieces were darker than others, etc. so I had to account for that when staining.
Well it looks absolutely beautiful. You did an amazing job and nor you will have those pieces forever and your kids will too. I still have my little girl bedroom set that my dad rescued from a dumpster and stripped and restained. I'm keeping it forever.