A Makeover {Desk}

When we made our last move my parents brought down a set of furniture from their house for us to use for the boys.  It was the set my dad and his brothers used from the time they were very little.  My sister and I used them, my brothers used them, and now my boys are getting to use them.  It was made back in the 1950's (I believe.)  The set includes 2 twin beds (which can also be bunked), a dresser, a night stand, a desk, and another chest.  My parents tried giving us another set of furniture they inherited from my Grandpa, but after speaking with Tim we made an offer to take this other set instead.  I'm so glad we did!

It is A.MA.ZING. furniture.  All the pieces made by Ethan Allen.  They are solid wood; I'm guessing Pine. 

  They aren't put together with screws or nails, but like puzzle pieces.

 

While Tim was deployed and in my exploration of the blog world I came across many refinished furniture projects and self built furniture.  This of course got me thinking and planning of all the great things we could do!  I even bought a sander with some of my Christmas money!  While the furniture set we got from my parents was sturdy I definitely envisioned it with a face lift.  I was hoping to complete at least ONE piece of furniture before he came back, but it just didn't happen.  So after we visited family we came back home and choose our first project.  The desk.  I didn't get very good "before" pictures. Hopefully on the next piece. 

  We ended up having to remove the entire top piece.  It has some type of laminate layer on it that we could sand through or peel off.  It worked out pretty well though.  We bought another solid piece of pine and got a few extra inches out of it.  A few inches makes a big difference!  I love the extra space!

Now don't give me a hard time, but we (I) had a little "trouble" with the stain.  I was going for a deep, espresso brown color.  I'm wanting to redo all the pieces we have, plus add a few, and knowing we will be moving a few more times in our military career I would like to have pieces that are interchangeable throughout the house.  I made the mistake of going by the color of the picture on the front of the can, and not the name.  Apparently, Ebony is black. 

I started on the back panel to try it out.  After the first layer it seemed (to me) to be drying a deep, deep brown.  So I proceeded to continue with staining the remainder of the piece.  

 The "trouble" seemed to unravel AFTER I completed two layers of stain.  Tim, and Ryan, notified me that it was black.  Tim and I must have had a bad communication day when picking out the stain, because I told him that I wanted brown, not black, and he knew that Ebony was black, not brown.  Yet, I still ended up staining the desk black.

While I don't particularly mind the black, it's not a favorite of Tim's.  Having already stained it though, we decided to go ahead and leave this piece as is and to pick out a new stain for the remainder of our projects.  Eventually, I'd like to exchange all the hardware out as well, so that everything will match.  For now, we just spray painted what was already on there with a Nickel finish.

Not the greatest "after" picture ever, either.  (I took it with my phone.)  I think we were anxious to have our garage space back for parking use, so we moved it back upstairs as soon as we could.

I think it took us a total of about two weeks to finish all the sanding, staining, and sealing.  It was hard to find the time to go out and work on it and it was even harder to wait for all the different layers to dry before adding another one.  I am so pleased with how it turned out and can't wait for our next one!