A Marriage of Two Desk Parts

      I love it when people have an idea of what they want and we can make it happen!  My partner had just returned from an auction and still had this beauty in the van when he sold it.  A gal came in looking for a monsterous-sized desk she could use for a crafting table and when he showed her this, she saw the potential.
     Originally, it had been two separate pieces that were married together.  The back part of the top had been cut off to make it sit flush with the wall.  At one time this top would have been part of an island piece because you could see there was housing for another set of drawers.  What are people thinking, huh?
     So, the new potential owner saw some recently finished pieces and loved the idea of a natural top with the dings and character enhanced with a shabby chic white paint job on the bottom base.  Armed with a vision, we got to work.
     I started by scraping the thick grease layer off the top so my partner could sand it easier without gumming up the sander.

     He sanded the top down while still leaving the character and used old maple flooring to fill in the back part.  He ended with three coats of polyeurethane to seal the perfect character flaws.

     Meanwhile, I sanded off the silver spray paint oops on the drawers to have a more uniformly colored surface.  I painted the whole thing with two coats of Rust-Oleums Heirloom White and did a major scuff job to it.

    This is the process and end results...........

After scraping off the layer of grease

Maple flooring back













After three coats of polyurethane

Two coats of paint and a scuff job on the left

Scuff job done on bottom part



     Origianally, we thought we would just leave the top of the desk itself alone but after I thought about it, I knew that I would like to have it all painted.  Besides, if I was purchasing it, I would see the possibility of maybe separating the top from the desk someday and having two pieces for the price of one. 

     The two pieces separate were ungodly heavy!  I never really had a good lighting after we put the top on and I really didn't feel like asking him to move it AGAIN so I hope you can see how fabulously cute it really turned out to be.

     I realize we can't keep everything that comes through the door but I would have loved to have gotten the chance to get bored with this one.  He's lucky to have sold it while I was doing something else important, whatever that was.