It Runs in the Family – Desk Makeover Tutorial From My Niece!

Hope everyone had a Happy Halloween!

I’m on a brief vacation to Ohio visiting the family.

In the meantime I thought I’d share a great letter I got from my niece which also serves as a terrific step by step furniture makeover tutorial!

You may recall Maggie is the one who, with no previous experience in upholstery took this chair and made this chairThereby proving that she is a show-off just like my dad wonderfully gifted, generous and talented!

So I’m not sure why she thought she needed advice from me but…….

Dearest Uncle,

I am extremely happy to report on the completion of a project I asked you about almost a year ago.

As you may recall, I had taken it into my head last September to paint my desk.  I swiftly contacted you and, after receiving excellent advice, delighted in the endorphin rush that comes from deciding to do a project… and promptly filed it at the back of my to-do list.

Well, procrastination can only take you so far, especially when the item you are procrastinating about is the one piece of furniture you use on a daily basis – stupid utility value.  So I embarked on the adventure!

Step One: convince husband to help move heavy piece of furniture to the garage (grudging success) – and bang it on every available door jam you encounter (epic fail.)

Step Two: discover that Mom (Phebe) had a piece of furniture she’d like to paint and pencil in several dates to have a “painting party.”

Step Two Point Five: Actually settle on the date and have it arrive.  Set up the garage.

Step Three: settle on color – I went with an Antique White since my newly reupholstered chair has an off-white background and I wanted them to somewhat match.  Mom chose with a Bright White for a charming little sewing machine table which she’s not going to use for sewing at all.  Ever.

Step Four: sanding.  I had a couple of thoughts at this stage… primarily: “Thanks for bringing your electric sander over, Mom!”   and “Why didn’t I buy face masks until I was three quarters finished with this stage? Step Five:  cleaning using TSP

Step Six:  prime everything -followed nearly immediately by realizing that we didn’t have enough primer.  

Step Seven: fine-grit sanding of first layer of primer and re-application of primer.

Step Eight: watch an episode of “The Tudors” so we don’t go out and try to put the first layer of paint on before the primer coats dry.

Step Nine: put first layer of actual paint on.  Curse occasionally due to drips.

Step Ten: More “Tudors” – same purpose.

Step Eleven: put second layer of paint on.  Acknowledge that it’ll be at least a week before I can do anything else.  Ugh!  This waiting thing sucks.

Now I’ll take a mini break from the steps because what happens next was not at all in the plan… but it was pretty inevitable.  I realized that I’d chosen “Antique White” for the purposes of matching my chair… but that my dang office was painted Bright White and my “new” desk wasn’t gonna look great against that wall color. So I decided to find a color I could use for an accent wall, settled on “mis-mixed” leftover at the paint store and ended up with lovely salmon-y color  that was definitely within the realm of matching my chair

Step Twelve: convince husband to help carry desk back inside… AND BASH IT AGAINST EVERY %$*&@ DOOR FRAME WE ENCOUNTERED!!!! (there were a few painting touch-ups needed)

Step Thirteen: hand-paint accent design on the front.  This was a Pinterest idea I saw and loved so I chose a bright green and practiced some tree branches on a large sheet of paper Step Fourteen: realize that I’m really happy with the way my desk came out… but that I have absolutely no way of sitting at it (the piece never had a chair and I’ve been improvising with leftover/extra furniture for years – not my best interior design moment, that’s for sure.)

Dash to the awesome Habitat for Humanity ReStore, find a sturdy little chair of the appropriate dimensions with just a bit of carpentry flare (is that a thing?  it is now…) to match my desk pop  out its seat and painted it and reupholstered it in a nice bright green.  Put them all together and whaddya got?  A sewing desk I’m not ashamed to show off!   The only remaining problem: how to get the primer out of my dog’s tail fur… (she was a little overzealous in her attempts to help me out in the garage…)

Thanks for the great advice Uncle David!  Everything worked out wonderfully!

Love,

-Mags

PS: Mom reminded me to tell you a bit about my 2-drawer index file cabinets that were a minor part of this painting initiative – they just happened to be the exact width of the bags Mom and I store our DMC Embroidery Floss in so I grabbed three from the pile of stuff they were getting rid of at work, painted the drawers and frames in alternating colors (green & white) and stacked them on top of my filing cabinet with a small swatches of the upholstery fabric slid into the label slot – they came out pretty cute, too!