Ikea Hack: A Sewing Desk

This was what my sewing corner looked like last week:

The sewing machines are on that same corner desk I've had for ages and never get around to finishing refinishing.  (Also it's missing a leg ever since we moved).  Next to it on the left there are two Ikea Helmer file cabinets which hold sewing and craft supplies.  You saw the new craft room last week; this is the story of the sewing desk.  So far it works really well and I LOVE using it. 

First: a can of Rustoleum's gray automotive primer: 

I used the same auto primer on an Ikea Raskog two years ago, and it came out really well.  The primer is made specifically for metal and metal paint, and that cart came out pretty much indestructible.  I wanted to use the auto primer again for this project because of all the abuse these Helmers take while I'm sewing.  

I also sprayed the handles gold (also R's American Accents): 

Once the primer was cured, I painted both Helmer units in Rustoleum's American Accents matte finish spray paint in Coastal Sage (sort of a blueish chalkboard-green color):

When both Helmers were painted and put back together, I purchased a 2x4' birch project panel at the hardware store and used it to create a desktop to go on top of them.  I raised the height of the desktop by placing a pair of 1" risers cut from an old shelving board on top of the Helmers.  I also used sections of clear Ikea Komplement drawer liner in between the wood pieces to keep them from sliding around.  

 So there's a new desk, for the cost of two cans of spray paint and a $26 piece of wood.  I turned two small pieces of furniture into one functional one, and moved a big, bulky, broken table out of the way.  Now I have a well-organized space that's comfortable and intuitive to use.  

Bonus:  my favorite part about my new sewing desk is the power strip on the right side - see it there, with the cords sticking out?  I have all the sewing machines, the light, the iron, and the pencil sharpener run through that power strip, so that I can turn the ENTIRE workspace on with one button.  Fwoosh! Ready to work.  The power strip even has USB charging ports, so I can charge my phone or whatever while I work.  Sweet!   

What In the Hecking Heck?

Work on the corner desk proceeds...well, I guess it's a decent pace if you're a glacier.  Or maybe a snail, or a tortoise.  I've got two legs fully stripped and sanded now, which took about 8 hours.

(this one is stripped, but not yet sanded)

Isn't that pretty?  I'm an idiot. What I thought was dark wood turns out to be just a stain job so old that it really didn't look like a stain job anymore.  Is it walnut? Redwood? Nope! It's YELLOW: 

mostly-sanded leg on the left, mostly-stripped at
center, two legs I haven't done yet on the right

Hey, I never said I was a professional wood-identifier.

What I do know is that the wood is

• Yellow, with gray and reddish streaks in the grain
• Very soft - I can mar it deeply with just my fingernail
• Light - as big as the whole table is, I can pick it up easily, and I can balance these legs on a finger
• Odiferous!  It smells kind of earthy and warm, and almost sweet - it reminds me of fireplaces and cookies baking.  It's not a "loud" smell;  I can only smell it when I put my nose right up to the wood.  

I have no idea of the age of the piece - I'm guessing 80s or a little bit earlier, from the style; but I have no way to know for sure.  I don't know if it was made locally or not.  There isn't a single stamp or maker's mark anywhere on it, so it might have been a one-off someone made at home?  Unless the original mark was on the drawer that was replaced by the crappy pine drawer that's on it now.

If it was locally made, either by a single person or a local company, it could be either some type of elm, or hackberry.  Both descriptions seem to fit better than anything else I've read; their pictures of the end-grain for American Elm matches these legs almost exactly.

Here's another question: is the top the same wood as the legs?  I won't know until I get there.

Something else I noticed:  while the legs are turned, they're not all one piece.  Both finished legs are made from two pieces of wood sandwiched together lengthwise, then turned on a lathe.  So not super high-end stuff, but maybe not cheap and mass-produced, either? I just don't know.

Not that it matters, anyway. I love this desk, and I can't wait to "meet" it when it's finished.

This is the kind of thing that I love about refurbishing old furniture.  Every single piece is an adventure, or a mystery, or simply an...experience.  (I'm looking at you, vanity table that smelled like dog pee when I sanded you).

More soon. 

The Corner Desk (Before)

Hey, look!  I actually remembered to take a bunch of before pictures!

This corner desk/table was given to me by a friend a couple of years ago.  One of her neighbors put it out with the bulk trash, and she snapped it right up, knowing I'd probably want it.  And she was right:  this is exactly the kind of thing that would cause me to slam on the brakes in the middle of the street to pick up. 

Or it would have been, if it had been nicely finished.  Truth be told I wasn't all that excited about it when I first saw it (but hey, free furniture, amirite?)...until I flipped it over and realized that this thing is solid freaking walnut.  Possibly.  It might be redwood.  I won't know for sure until I get farther along in the stripping process.

30" tall
36 x 36" top surface

1980s, maybe 1970s

Style:  ...?  Generic something.

That drawer knob...no.  It's already in the trash.

Ewwww! 

Bad, fading, cracking paint job; water/sun damage, and some kind of generalized mank that doesn't come off even when I scrub it clean.

Yes, this is clean. 

I know, right?  Gross.

There are four finishes on this thing: 

1. Streaky, gloppy wood stain, incorrectly applied and incomplete
2. White paint or primer
3. Beige/ivory paint - streaky, patchy, gloppy, and drippy
4. Taupe paint - streaky, patchy, gloppy, drippy

And all of it is chipped and peeling.  Thankfully, it's also stripping really nicely so far.

MUWAHAHAHAHA.  Isn't that disgusting?  I love it. 






Please wear your PPEs and have a bottle of vinegar handy when working with paint stripper, people.  You've seen Fight Club, right?  The lye burn scene?  Yeah. That. Scrape and brush away from yourself, not toward, and keep your legs covered.

 Tools and materials:

• Crown Tuff-Strip spray
• thick neoprene gloves
• eye protection
• long pants and closed shoes, or long apron/tarp toga
• vinegar
• plastic scraper
• stiff plastic "wire brush"
• actual wire brush
• rags
• lots of sandpaper

1. Underside of the table top. I thought that the top was splitting, but you can see here that it's just made of planks which are starting to separate.

2. The stain job is visible here a bit.  Nice color, poor execution. Bad stain jobs make me mad. 

3. The original drawer was replaced with a homemade pine one which barely fits into the frame and doesn't slide well.  Can I stain it to match, or will I end up buying a new front?

Weird hardware.  I know now that this square nut and square screw-drive business is fairly common (especially in Europe); but when I first saw this table, I'd never seen such a thing before, and I thought it might mean that this table is really old.  Nope. 

Oops!  Fumbled the phone and accidentally took this. Enjoy the dad sandals.