Desk and Chair Remodels!

So, I promised some more posts on the latest projects, so here we go:

I've refinished a desk that my father received as a Christmas gift when he was about ten. Again, it was a lighter wood, but not quite oak. The desk was in decent shape, but the top of the desk - the most important part - had become quite scratched up and had an unsightly water mark from a potted plant. This desk is small - made for a ten year old really, so it seemed perfect to be a craft desk for me. It had been relegated to my grandparents' laundry room, so I decided to save it and fix it up. Refinishing a desk is about as daunting as doing a chiffarobe. You've got all of those drawers, and again (!) wooden knobs. So sanding, sanding, sanding.

I started sanding the top of the desk and the knobs on the same day that we started sanding the chair...but I'll get to that. The top of the desk took so long because I had to basically go down to bare wood to get away from that water stain. Once I finished the top and the knobs, Brandon took a good long look at the desk and suggested that maybe we paint just the bits I'd already done. The rest of the desk was in good shape, and I was all for getting out of some work, so we tried the top with a little Buttercream. It turned out so well, we just decided to go with it. So we painted the knobs, too. After they dried, I sanded them down a touch because you really want a desktop to be super smooth feeling. Polyeurathane on the tops of everything since it would be a craft table, and ta-da! Oh, and Brandon recovered the chair (and replaced the padding) to match the study.

Before ( I have to get this off a different computer)

After

Just so we're clear, Brandon junked up the top with his sewing maching. It has since been removed because I use it as an art table. I do appreciate that he's willing to sew, though.

The big chair remodel is to come...