Desk Transformation

For the last four weekends I have been attempting to refinish a 1950's wooden desk that I have owned for about 11 years now. I got a great deal on it at a thrift store, and knew that I would eventually refinish it, but never got around to it. I've recently been motivated by the fact that we will be moving soon, and I won't have the use of a garage to do the level of sanding, furniture stripping, and painting that I've been used to up to this point, and since the apt. will be smaller this desk will become our computer desk in the main common area.

It had this horrible yellow veneer on it that took almost two weekends to sand through, before I gave up and bought a non-toxic paint stripper, which took 1/3 of the time to remove the veneer. Lesson learned, start there!

Since I was putting on a more modern looking hardware I also had to fill in some of the grooves that were in the drawers, but the wood filler worked well, and then required a bit more sanding.

The desk looked amazing when it was finally completely stripped of it's veneer, but it's at this point you learn a lot about the furniture's maker. For instance the desk is made from different types of wood, that when stripped are lighter and darker than each other.  Still it's a fabulous base to work from.

Yesterday I went over to The Home Depot and picked up a simple white semi-gloss enamel paint with a primer already in it, and put two coats on the drawers. With the 90+ degree heat we have been having the paint dried in no time. It's still going to take a few more coats, but I think at this point it's already a remarked improvement. We have a bit of a cool front that came through today, so I'm heading down in a few to tack cloth the desk body itself and then start painting that. With any luck I should have this all done and ready before we start to move in the next few weeks.

After this there's only a few small spray paint projects left, and I will be all finished with the backed up refinishing projects I've accumulated over the last few years!