***Originally posted on cregarstyle on August 18, 2014***
Good morning world! It may be Monday morning, but I am in a GGGGGGGREAT (Tony the Tiger anyone?) mood this morning. Why? Because today I get to share my new desk...and I am writing this as I sit at my new desk. BONUS!
To be completely honest, I had zero intention of getting a new desk. Prior to last night I had a simple Ikea table top that worked well as a workspace for school and would eventually be easy to repurpose (when I FINALLY graduate) and it would make a great crafting table. However, my wonderful husband was out for a walk with our pup one morning before work and he came back to shake me awake and show me a picture of this desk on the street in our neighborhood just a couple blocks from our house. The best part? On the desk was a sign that said my favorite word...FREE. At this point I didn't really care what the desk looked like, as long as it was not home to a family of black widows (it wasn't don't worry), I wanted the desk. So last Wednesday morning we took Heidi (my Highlander) and drove over to pick it up. This is what she looked like.
Not too shabby for a free desk, but to be fair, this photo was after I had cleaned her up...and removed the hardware from the drawers. There is also a drawer that goes in the top left cubby that is not pictured. Now don't be fooled, this is not a super amazing quality wood desk. It is that laminate fake wood over top basically plywood or particleboard. Conveniently though, I had just done some research (ok, Pinning) about how to paint furniture from Ikea that has that type of finish. Apparently, people would spend all this time, effort, and money painting furniture with similar finishes just to have it flake off. If you knew me you would know that nothing bothers me more than when paint flakes off after I spent time painting...mostly my nails...they just WON'T hold polish. Moving on. I was not going to spend days re-doing this desk to have it come off as soon as I touched it.
Luckily for me, I found out that there is a wonderful primer that helps prevent that! I spent about a day just staring at the desk and googling/pinning different painted desks before landing on silver thanks to a wonderful blog I follow called LiveLoveDIY. Virginia (who runs that blog) does AMAZING work and I started this blog because of hers. She did this amazing desk with silver leaf and spray paint. After reading her post I found out that silver leaf was expensive, time consuming, and difficult. However, her post showed that she had spray painted the legs of her desk instead of using silver leaf and I could not tell the difference so I decided to go that route. I found the special primer to help with the laminate finish at Home Depot. It was a little spendy, although I've never purchased primer before so I don't have a good grasp on what an average price is. I decided against the gallon because I was not planning on spending $43 on primer. Instead I bought the quart size for $13 ish. I also picked up two cans of silver spray paint and a tester (best $3 ever spent) on tiffany blue paint. This concluded my first of many trips to Home Depot. Here is the complete list of supplies.
Supplies for Silver Desk:
-BIN Primer
-Rustoleum Silver Spray Paint
-Polycrylic Water Based Clear Satin Protective Finish
-3 Crystal Pulls
-Sample of Tiffany Blue Paint
-Felt Furniture Stickers
First I decided to clean the desk with my TSP I had left over from the end table I did last weekend. I only did this because I didn't know who had the desk before me and it had stickers and some "gunk" in some areas. TSP is a super easy way to clean and gives you a wonderful, clean surface to work with. However, if your piece isn't super dirty, just wiping it down with a rag and warm water would be enough. Next I put on the first coat of primer. I was in the garage and used my make shift drop cloth (a shower curtain liner) to prevent drips in the garage. DEFINITELY DO THIS! Also, make sure you are priming in a very well ventilated area. This primer smells like straight alcohol (and not the good smelling kinds). Even in an open garage bay the smell was getting to me a little. The primer dried quickly in our 100 plus degree heat. I need to stop crafting on the hottest days in the middle of the day. Poor timing on my part.
Desk after one coat of primer
Desk after second coat of primer
I probably could have done a third coat of primer to make my desk look more even before starting to paint, but priming was time consuming and exhausting in the heat (and expensive to buy) while spray paint was cheaper, faster to apply, and I could spend the rest of the time in AC instead of 30-45 minutes priming. The spray painting went by SOOOO easily and got in all the cubbies without any problem. I did two coats and then just touched up some spots that were a little less saturated. Since the spray paint dried so quickly I was able to add my pops of Tiffany blue to the keyboard drawer, as well as the 3 traditional drawers rather quickly.
I love that the color pops next to the metallic silver. I did a second coat of blue and then waited for everything to dry before beginning to seal it. I had some left over clear polyurethane spray paint that I thought would be easier than painting on my sealant (and I already owned it so less money spent) but whatever you do, DO NOT USE SPRAY POLYURETHANE! At least not for this type of project. It turned my beautiful metallic silver finish to a dull gray and it was blotchy. So I re-sprayed the silver and purchased the Polycrylic that you paint on. Soooo much better! I did 2 coats on the inside and outside of the drawers as well as the table top surfaces, cubbies, and keyboard drawer. I only used a tiny bit so there is plenty left over for more projects. I also loved that this product dried quickly so I could apply the second coat and install my pretty knobs without having to wait all day.
Doesn't she look goregous?!?!?! Look at how the silver reflects the bright blue! I am so in love. I left her in the garage for a little bit to let the fumes air out but then by evening I was able to put her in the house and swap out my old desk.
All I did last night was put MACkenzie (my MacBook) on the keyboard tray. So today after this post my job is going to be organizing all my desk supplies. Currently they are all on hubby's desk which is caddy-corner to mine. I doubt he will be too happy if it is all still sitting there tonight when he comes home.
Such a fabulous transformation. I had a long list of things I planned to do with my last two weeks before the fall semester starts, but the desk was kind of a surprise so that put a kink in my list. I will re-evaluate it today, but I may be done with significant DIY projects for a little while. After all, school starts 1 week from TODAY! I plan on doing small things, and maybe picking away at the dining room table and chairs or painting the master bath. I also want to start up my food section of the blog and work on the faith part as well. Until then...
No comments:
Post a Comment