Because Poe Wrote on Both*

Another "Finally!" project is complete.  As much as I'd had an enormous Whirlwind of Projects! planned for my holiday break, I ended up sick the entire time and got nothing done (unless you count sitting around binge-watching episodes of The West Wing, at which I excelled).  Before I broke my foot in May 2017. I did two things:  I bought a new bike, and I started refinishing two desks. This is one of them, finally finished, ten months later.

This thing started life as a an unfinished, loosely Mission-style, sofa table. My roommate bought it roughly a thousand years ago, stained it herself, and used it for book and cat storage for many years, before deciding she wanted to use it as a writing table. A blue writing table.

The first task, then, was to make sure the thing was tall enough for her to sit at with an office chair.  It wasn't, but only by an inch:  four slices of a 2x2" stick, my jigsaw and hand planer, some sandpaper, and putty took care of that:

Next was to remove the drawer hardware, mostly-sand the whole thing down, and hit it with some Liquid Sander, which is still one of my favorite substances on the planet:

ready to prime! 

Liquid Sander is a deglosser - essentially a very mild stripper, that breaks down the outermost layer of finish on a piece - clearcoat, stain, paint, whatever.  It's meant to take the place of sanding;  I usually sand a piece first, to break up the clearcoat on the piece, before using the deglosser, so that it breaks down more of the outer layer of clearcoat/stain, and is better able to take primer and paint.

Just don't use it without gloves, unless you like your skin peeling off for the next two days.  Especially don't use it without gloves when you're using red shop rags to wipe it on, or you'll turn your fingers red:

sadtrombone.mp3

Since I suck at remembering to take "before" pictures, I used MS Paint to put the Mission side rails and drawer knobs back on for you, LOL:

This project leveled up in the fun department when I realized
that I could just KICK those side rails out.  BLAM! Hee.

First coat of primer: 

I put another coat of primer over the first, then painted it.  The paint was mixed from a remnant of SW's "Tradewinds" (which is what's on the walls), a little bit of a midnight blue to mute the color without graying it out, and a touch of orange to warm it up just enough to bring it into a "dusky" blue without turning it green. It took a bit of work to get it just right; but I love this shade of pale turquoise - a bit darker, and a lot greener/warmer than the wall color. 

(this looks crammed into a corner because of the angle of the
photo; but there's actually a good six feet of space back there) 

Roomie hasn't found the perfect drawer knobs just yet, so I threw some cheap little brass-finish Ikea knobs on it for the time being:  

(I told you everything I own is blue)

Now my roomie has a dedicated space in the house to work on her novels, when she doesn't feel like going out to a coffee shop to write.  

Next! 

cat tax

*The answer to "Why is a raven like a writing desk?" in case you've ever wondered.