My dad had a cool, old desk & when he was packing up to move out of the country, I asked him "You want to take that old thing? You should leave it. Here. With me." He didn't leave it. He loves his cool, old desk.
Also, it was just under $500 (it's a bit less now, but it wasn't when I decided I had to have a new desk). So, I searched Craigslist.
I found this an oak roll top desk listed for $50, and it was conveniently close to us. I emailed the seller, and it was available. I had to wait for Bernix to get home, because oak roll top desks do not fit in shiny Touaregs. They totally fit in Town & Country minivans, though.
We went to look at it, and the sellers had removed the drawers & shelves on one side to "make room for a computer". The lady was excited to let me know that my computer would fit in the desk. I laughed (nicely) and said my computer is "this big" (picture me holding my hands 15" apart). So, they knocked $10 off the price because now I had to find a way to cover up the big empty space.
We brought it home & put it in the garage, because I didn't want my oak roll top desk to look like oak.
I searched pinterest for ideas.
The following Sunday, Bernix & the littles stayed home from church because he was a little sick & a lot tired. I came home from church with Lisa & he was in the garage, sanding the desk. Isn't he sweet?
Another day, we went to Lowe's to look at paint. I still had only a vague idea of what I might want.
Lowe's had a sale on sample paint, buy one get one free. They also had some cute colors. I chose Velspar Secluded Garden & Cream In My Coffee.
We were going to start painting, and realized we hadn't bought primer. We probably needed to prime the desk before painting it. I went out for primer. I stopped at ReStore and found a super cute chair for $10. I didn't find primer (well, they had some cans of tinted primer...). I went to home depot for primer & found a can of clear coat on the clearance shelf. I grabbed it, got the primer & went back to find the price of the clear coat. I didn't want to pay too much for it... and the girl told me "It's your lucky day. I can't sell it for a penny. So, you can have this for free." Yay! Free!
I came home & Bernix started priming the desk while I sanded the chair.
We stayed out painting until after dark. Almost everything got a first coat of paint. It took 3 separate sessions to get everything painted, including one early in the day so we could take advantage of that fancy light source, the sun.
Also, I had to fix the big empty top half of the inside of the desk. I decided to make a memory board for it. I failed to buy a piece of wood or foam. I improvised and used cardboard, fleece I had on hand, the pretty fabric I bought, pretty cream colored ribbon, some old buttons from a giant box of buttons I got at church, and my handy dandy staple gun. My handy dandy staple gun decided to hate me that day (maybe it hated the cardboard?) and I wasted at least 50 staples. I finished the memory board and hot glued the buttons on (just for decoration). Bernix helped me glue it inside the desk.
Once everything was dry, we just had to... rearrange half the furniture in the house to make room for the desk.
Bernix did that for me, with very little help from me (I'm not much help when it comes to moving furniture, since I am not very strong).
We got the desk inside around 10pm Sunday night.
I've been enjoying my beautiful new desk & chair all week.
What do you think?
It's super cute! Does the roll top actually work? Can you HIDE ALL THE THINGS?!!
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