Stripped

Okay, now that the nonsense with my dad and the nonsense over that show is done with, now we're on to more awesome things. Namely, I finished my desk! HOLLA!! It was my very first project and I seriously doubted myself. I studied the tutorial daily, memorizing everything I would need and set about scouring the thrift stores for a desk for the sitting room since we don't have formal office space.

I found one at Salvation Army and I knew it would be perfect. Drew the know-it-all had a few words for me, namely did I know what I was getting into, did I know how hard it was going to be, blah blah blah. Of course I didn't know what I was doing, but I didn't care. I was going to make it work!

We had to take it apart to get it in the car so I don't have pictures of the complete desk.

These are the legs after I stripped the varnish off of them. I knew I wanted to paint it white so I wasn't too concerned about getting the stain out. I've heard of putting Clorox on the wood to bleach it back but I didn't need to do all that. 

This is the top of the desk. You can kind of see how shiny it was. Stripping the legs was a b*tch and I only stripped some of the top before I said forget it and sanded the rest.

Close up of one of the drawers 

Drew looking at it on the garage floor. 

After our first conversation I told him to zip his lips and he wisely listened.

It took a couple of weekends to get it finished - trying to work on it during the week was too much but once I was done sanding, the painting and priming was done in a couple of days. I could only work on it early morning or late night because the garage became a flippin sauna at ten in the morning. One day I was so determined to finish a coat of primer I stayed out there until I was positively dripping with sweat.

But it was worth it! Check out my desk!

It's Valspar Pale Bloom.  

I'm a sucker for paint names and our rose bushes are just outside the door.

Towards the end, I petered out and didn't want to paint the inside of the drawers. I decided to line the drawers with contact paper and found the coolest paper at Lowe's (my new favorite store). I thought it came out really nicely and gives it a more personal touch since I didn't see that on anybody's blogs. That part was not easy! I wasted so much contact paper and cursed up a storm! Yeah, I'm super intelligent and articulate but frankly, it amuses me to curse. I do it in a funny way and I never use the ugly curses (JC, GD, etc). My real life peeps know what I'm talking about.

Maya's crate is next to the desk and she was in there while I was doing all this because Drew was outside doing yard work; she found it all highly boring.

My next project is a table for the breakfast nook. We sold the washer and dryer that came with the house on Craigslist for $175 and I found a table for $150 - score!!
We've learned our lesson though - that one is already inside and now that I've got all the supplies it should go much faster. I have a before shot of it too so I'll really be able to compare them side by side. What do you think of my desk?