Now the question is how to protect it, because pine, from my experience in woodshop classes, takes damage easily depending on what happens to it, my recommendation is everything you said, then after that, putting a couple of coats of epoxy resin on it. That's what I was thinking about doing to my desk after talking to my old woodworking professor a week ago. It's just what to use, probably fast curing crystal clear resin. That's just my idea though, to preserve something to make it last longer, y'know?