My Desk Makeover

Hi everyone!  I've been working on a thousand things over here, which have led to some late nights.  I suppose it's true what they say: "You'll sleep when you're involuntarily committed because you've gone crazy because you haven't slept".  They do say that, right?

Anyhoo, I wanted to share my new desk with you all!  Actually, we finished the desk just before Thanksgiving, but it wasn't ready for pictures until January... and then I had a million things to do and didn't have time.  NOW IS THE TIME.

The desk did not look like this when I bought it.

So, you've heard me ranting about how office supplies are ugly.  I mean, is it so hard to make a pretty router or pretty hanging file folders?  No.  It really just... isn't.  I wanted a white desk.  A white desk that was big enough for my needs.  A white desk that was big enough for my needs and didn't cost a billion dollars.

Oh, and I was nine months pregnant at the time, so this desk became an emotional white whale, that I would be so close to capturing before it dove into the ocean and was never heard from again.  Here is the desk I found, that matched almost every criteria:

I thought this one was almost perfect!  Except of course, that it isn't white.  So I told the husband what I wanted to do.  He winced.  And then closed his eyes and sighed.

I wanted to paint the whole thing.  A week after we had moved into our new house.  While I'm nine months pregnant.  While we were still living out of boxes.

My timing is awesome.

The hubs got to work, diligently sanding each piece of this desk.  By the way, there were like, a hundred pieces or some nonsense.

You have to get all the shine of these veneer pieces or the paint won't stick.  Sanding all of these pieces was such a chore, for realsies.

Look how happy my husband is to be helping!  Of course, he's always making this face, so what do I know?

Once the sanding was done, I went to the priming and painting: Two coats of each.  This took FOR. EV. ER. because I had to prime one side of all the pieces, let it dry, flip it over and prime the other side, let it dry, REPEAT, and do it all again with the painting.  Sweet Moses, it took a long time.  And I had a newborn by this time, so it was super-awesome in this house.

And once that was done, I polyurethaned the whole works.  Oh, and then HAD TO PUT IT ALL TOGETHER.  AND ADD FABRIC TO THE BACK.  Luckily, my sister came over to help me and the hubs with that.  She is awesome at stuff like that.  The three of us managed to get it all done the night before Thanksgiving, which was great since we were having family over for the holiday.  Nothing like doing things in the nick of time!

The desk organization isn't completely done, there are a few things I've been meaning to do, but for now I am thrilled.  I will share some little organization things I did with this desk in a future post because I am tired and must have that rest before they do have me committed.

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