Vintage Office Desk Makeover
Besides relaxing, a use of our lake house family room is a home office.
Every home office needs a desk and I found just what I was looking for, a large vintage office desk, on Facebook Marketplace.
The owner of this desk told us that he purchased it in Floyd, VA. This is one of the pictures that was posted on Facebook Marketplace.
The desk was in good condition other than needing to be refinished and some minor repairs.
Note that one drawer handle was crooked and one was missing. Also, note the rough condition of the finish on the desk legs.
We took the desk apart, removed the drawers and drawer pulls divers.
The desk needed a few repairs, mainly just gluing loose pieces back in place.
The middle drawer also needed to be repaired. A touch of glue was all it needed.
After the glue for the repairs was dry, we used an orbital sander with 220 grit paper and sanded every piece of the desk.
Look at the gorgeous grain of the wood!
I used a mouse sander to sand the corners. This is a super handy sander to own for sanding tight spots.
The next weekend the desk pieces were sealed with .
We moved the desk inside for refinishing.
The desk was stained with General Finishes Gel Stain in Brown Mahogany. The desktop got two coats and the other desk pieces just one coat.
Three coats of General Finishes Top Coat were applied with a sponge brush to protect the finish.
The gold feet on the desk were refreshed with a touch of Rub ‘n Buff in Antique Gold.
Be sure to wear latex gloves when applying Rub ‘n Buff as it is a pain to clean your hands if you don’t.
While I worked on staining the desk, my husband made a handle for the desk drawer that was missing one. See my blog post for how he made this.
All of the handles were painted black and then reattached to each drawer. The desk was then put back together in its new home in our lake house family room.
We are so pleased with the end result of this makeover!
The desk is the perfect home office for my husband. He has plenty of room to work and the bonus is that he gets to work with a lake view.
Resources for this project:
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beautiful job.
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I love it. It looks like the desk my teachers had with those pullout boards where they usually had a grading scale taped and would call you up to discuss your grades. ( yeah I am that old.) I just had metal and particle board desks when I was a teacher.
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It says the project cost $20; you mentioned you found the desk on Facebook Marketplace. How much did you pay for the desk? It turned out beautifully!
What wood stripper would you recommend - I want to refinish my hall tree