Barstools turned out nice, but the wood is soft

I looked all over to find the French Country inspired bar stools for my kitchen and finally found these online. I haven't experienced ready to finish furniture before, but these seemd to be just right for my kitchen bar. I ordered four from WalMart.com. and I liked knowing that I could return them to a store if needed. They arrived promptly right to my front door and they were very well packaged. WalMart was great with the tracking info. and it was easy to use the app on my phone so I knew when they would arrive. It took two of us about two hours to assemble all four barstools using only a power phillips screwdriver. There weren't any instructions, but it was pretty intuitive. There were 2 screws missing from one of the kits, but I think I can find them at Ace. I was happy that it was presanded, but there was plenty of sanding to come! As we were assembling them, we noticed that the wood was pretty soft... not at all " like the hardness of oak" as mentioined in the product description by the manufacturer. I painted the body of the stools with Valspar Cabinet and Furniture Paint from Lowe's. It's a great, durable product and I was able to have the color custom mixed. If I hadn't used this paint I would definatley would have needed primer. After the first coat of paint some of the wood was sort of rough, but after the paint dried overnight I was able to sand it down nicely with a 220 grit sandpaper. I needed to sand lightly between each of the three coats of paint after drying completely to get a smooth finish. The paint looks great. I didn't attach the seat to the bar stools because I wanted them stained. Before I stained the seat I experimented with a couple of colors on the underside of the seat and I am so glad I did! This wood took the stain totally diffrent from what I have stained in the past. I wish I had used a preconditioner for soft wood so the Varathane Kona stain would be more even, but it turned out pretty nice after a couple coats of stain and a couple coats of Minwax satin polycrylic. There is nothing on the bottoms of the chair legs, so they will definatlely need felt pads so they don't scratch the wood floor. It took time and patience to finish these bar stools, but I am happy with how they turned out. I'm going to make some Toile fabric seat cushion to complete the look and the bar stools will look great.