I spent some time breaking down my own beginner friendly node layout this week, and it reminded me how much easier color grading gets when things are separated instead of crammed into one node.
The big shift is this, do your white balance, exposure and contrast before converting anything to Rec709. When you make those primary adjustments in a wider color space, you keep way more detail to work with. It feels calmer and less like you are wrestling the image.
After that, adding a look or LUT on a separate node actually makes sense because everything underneath is already balanced. You can then go back and fine tune the early nodes without destroying the look on top.
If color grading still feels like guesswork, try building out that simple six node stack. It gives you a clear order to follow and makes each step easier to understand.