From super ugly to super chic

Here is one of my latest projects. I found this little beauty at a Habitat for Humanity Restore for $35. I was in luck that day because my Restore was doing an additional 15% off! Woo hoo! I found this and overlooked its ugliness and saw what its potential could be. Like my mother always said, "Its not whats on the outside that counts, its what lies beneath. That saying could be said for the desk!

Of so the first thing I did was remove all drawers and clean this baby out. Who knows what it has seen in its many days. 

Then I removed all of the yucky brass hardware. Here is a close up pic of the hardware. Oh and please excuse my pictures...I just got a new camera for Christmas (a Nikon D3100) and I am determined not to shoot pics in Auto, so I am still getting used to the settings in Manual =)

Sorry for this blurry pic but a cool thing about this desk is that it is a Drexel furniture piece.

Ok so after I got all of the hardware off, I sprayed it with some rubbed bronze spray paint. As you will learn in my posts, I am obsessed with spray paint. My hubby says that I spray paint everything!

The next thing I did was strip the top part of the desk. Since this desk had many years of varnish and gunk, I had to use 3 coats of stripper.  This is the not so fun part of making over furniture...

 This was after the first coat of stripper



I then sanded the drawers very well

My next step was painting the bottom half. I am in love with anything shabby chic or French country inspired, so I knew I wanted to portray those loves in this desk since I will be spending a lot of time blogging there. So I painted it....drum roll please....WHITE! I know it sounds boring but I have a few techniques to make it pop!

Then I stained the top part with a dark mahogany stain and polyurethane mix.  I then did a gold glaze over the boring white to make it super vintage looking. I screwed the hardware back in and then begged the hubby to stop watching football and help me move this sucker in our bedroom. Now, I do have a home office that used to house my computer, but we are clearing that room out to make it a workout zone...which will rarely be used by me =).

So here she is after her complete makeover:

 Here she is with some accessories.



 Before



After