This End Up, Classic Queen Platform Bed, Finishing (Part I)

This projects starts with a This End Up Classic Queen Platform Bed that was ordered unfinished, it's made primarily of pine.

This is the bed setup with a rather thin memory foam mattress:

The bed is rather plain, but nice looking pine:

 Bed disassembled in garage prior to staining:

 Before staining we sanded the pine with 180 and then 220 grit sand paper.
We then wiped it down with mineral spirits (use cheese cloth or other lint free fabric).
As this was pine and pine is known for being porous and not taking stain evenly we did a coat of MinWax  Pre-Stain Wood Conditioner applied with cheese cloth. After about five minutes or so we wiped off the excess with more cheese cloth (seriously, when finishing / staining you can't have too much cheese cloth).
Then we applied the stain, MinWax Wood Finish Red Oak 15, and applied that with HDX Staining Pads and Flat Foam Brushes which worked really well.
After about ten minutes we wiped off the excess stain with HDX Tack Cloth.

Staining in progress with fiancee and coworker Megan: