Craigslist Find {Before & After}

Two years ago, I had this amazing idea to find a small desk for Sydney on Craigslist. A desk that she could use for both getting ready and also homework. Check out the original post here. My Grandmother has a beautiful desk that's the exact size I was looking for. Knowing they're more antique that modern, I searched on Craigslist. Ironically, I found one. Creepy part was that the woman passed away and had a ton of furniture in her garage that she wasn't using. Her granddaughter was selling it along with everything else. I hurried over there, purchased the desk for an insanely cheap price and brought it home. I must admit, I stared at it for almost a year and a half before I finally decided what color to paint it. It was quite the project, but I'm absolutely thrilled with the results. It's a perfect multi-purpose desk. The top two drawers are actually for jewelry. One is a ring holder, the other a lined drawer with several compartments. The front top lifts up, as you can see in the photo to reveal a mirror as well as a removable tray with several compartments. Currently Syd uses this for all of her jewelry. The front right drawers are perfect for notebooks, pencils, pens, etc for school. The left side opens as a cabinet to reveal a drawer that pulls out to use for larger items.

First thing I did was to recover the seat. It's a rather comfy seat, so I decided to keep it and not replace it with another. I honestly wasn't even thinking about the colors when I did it. I only had a small amount of fabric at the time, so I figured out which pieces would fit it, sewed them together and stapled it with a staple gun about 1000 times. I now wish I didn't use so many since I'm not 100% sold on the fabric, but it'll do for now. I may curse myself out the day I decide to change it though. I originally spray painted the chair black and quite honestly, I wasn't loving it. This was the last change I made. I spray painted it "gum drop" which is a lovely purple (Syd's favorite color) mostly because I had it on hand from another project I recently completed.

Here's how I refinished the desk:

• First I scrubbed this bad boy down with lots of soap and water. Let's just say this was the dirtiest piece of furniture I've ever seen.
• Next step was I removed all the handles, drawer faces, mirror, legs, inserts, screwed on drawers on the top of the desk and the piece of wood that lifts up in the center of the desk. Basically I took the whole thing completely apart! I lightly sanded all the pieces of wood with a fine grade sand paper. I didn't sand the mdf pieces at all since they don't need to be primed.
• I used a sticky cloth to remove all of the dust particles. I did this probably three times and then also used a rag on it, just to make sure I got all of it.
• Then I primed the entire desk with Alkyd Enamel Undercoater, solvent-based. I just used the brand from Ace Hardware. This primes the desk to take the paint and also covers and odors, stains, etc.
• Then the fun part, I used a Benjamin Moore Semi-Gloss Latex Paint to add the color. Color used is Jamaican Aqua. We did two coats of this and letting each coat dry properly inbetween.
• Last step was I decided I wanted to protect the desk since my daughter would most likely be spilling things on it, writing on it (or the most recent one, painting it with lipgloss). We added a coat of Minwax Polycrylic Clear Gloss Finish, lightly sanded after the first coat and applied a second coat of it. I'm soooo happy I did this because it's come in very handy and also gives the desk an amazing finish. Just be careful not to use this over white paint or it will turn it slightly yellow.
• After it all dried, we put all the pieces back together again.
• Finally just to finish off the desk, I added colored/scented paper to all of the drawers in a modern white and purple print. Matches her chair perfectly, plus it just adds an adorable fun look to it.

Here are the Before and After photos.

The heart under the mirror was Syd's addition and I have to admit, I love it! :)