The Desk

I had previously posted about this project on my personal blog, but since I feel it shows just how dramatic a makeover can be for a piece of furniture, I just had to post it here as well. I LOVE my projects, they make me happy. For the longest time (seriously it was 8.5 years), we had the ugliest desk known to man. It was a corner desk, which I hate anyway because of their total disregard for space, but it was also particle board laminated with a wood grain picture on top for the body of the desk and flat black for the tops and shelves. Can you say YUCK??? All the storage for the desk was open and because of my love of projects and the fact that I'm a busy mom and keep other people's children as well, the mess was very visible to everyone that walked into our bedroom. This is what it looked like almost contantly!

And sadly enough this was pretty clean since it was the day the desk was scheduled for death, I had already de-cluttered the top section! I don't like mess. I like clean! So I scoured the internet and looked in antique stores and searched until I thought I would lose my mind. No one had the perfect desk, or rather an affordable perfect desk. I found great desks for about $900 - $1500, but I just couldn't justify spending the money on that. I wanted a fantastic desk that I could store everything in and have great functionality out of. Finally, one day while I was on Craigslist looking for an entirely different project, I happened upon an ad for a desk. It was ridiculously ugly, but listed as a solid wood desk for $80. I thought, "okay then, I can work with that!" So I called the lady up and set up a time to go look at it. It was in a not so good part of town so I called in my father and his truck to go with me. We went, and the desk was NOT solid wood. It was mostly MDF with some wood, it had been altered, and a wood grain formica had been put on the top. I hummed and hawed and talked it over with my dad for a few minutes. I mean, how practical would this purchase be? But, I just couldn't pass up the storage or the price so I went for it! This is what it looked like.

I got the thing home and sanded the formica top to rough it up a bit for the paint. I used a great primer and sprayed the whole thing. I do not have a great sprayer so I decided after the primer I was going to go with a good old fashioned paint brush and some foam rollers. It went great! I changed out the hardware and gave the desk some nice jewelry with glass pulls and a gleaming custom glass top! The desk, paint, pulls, and top all together cost $257, most of which went to the custom glass top. I'd say that is money well spent ;)