Refinish Wood Furniture Experience

Does anyone have experience refinishing wood furniture?

Picked up a solid oak table, but has a really dark stain. I want to apply a lighter/warmer stain.
I've been looking on YouTube and it seems fairly straight forward, all be it a ton of work.

If anyone does have experience and could share any tips that would be great!

Post a pic if you can. Depending on how bad it is you might not be able to sand it out completely so you might have to go with a stain that will hide it