Saturday, August 3, 2013

New Old Desk


Wesley and I finished up her desk today. We bought these drawer pulls at Hobby Lobby on sale for $2 a piece! I had looked at the ones at Anthropoligie but they were $10-$20 each, out of my budget for this project, and these were half price. What a deal! They are sooooo cool. Each drawer got a different one.



The color was hard to photograph correctly, but it's pretty much a Chinese red. Wes suggested the gold leaf around the edge and it was the cherry on top. Perfect! I distressed the edges and put an antiquing glaze on it, then waxed it. It's hard to tell there are three layers of colors here.






We lined the drawers with some nice papers that my pal Laura gave us a while back for crafts. Perfect, again. I bought the desk for $40, spent $20 on the pulls, used old paint and gifted paper, in total, for a really cool desk, I have spent $60. Not bad. Makes me consider going into the furniture re-making business...... hmmmmm.


Happy girl with her new desk. There will be many screenplays and stories written at this desk in the coming years. Who knows, maybe the next best selling novel. That's what I'm talking about!
Now we have to find the perfect chair......

16 comments:

Laura Farrow said...

beautiful Wesley. she's stealing the show away from her beautiful desk... just sayin. xo

Dennis Allen said...

Looks nice, fresh and clean.So does the desk.It's a nice way to start the school year.

cookingwithgas said...

That girl will have great stories to tell.
Questions, did you do any thing to the desk, such as stripping off the old stuff?
I have an old dresser I would love to paint and what holds me back is being married to the prep guy.
Can I just go after it with paint?
There is a good market for rehabbing stuff. Lee did a lot of this as her bread and butter, or in your case, no butter, money.
The desk is a real sweet piece for Wesley.

Tracey Broome said...

Laura, I know, she's a purty girl :-)
Haha! Dennis.... Used to be crayons and paper for school supplies, now it's furniture for a new house!
Meredith, if I were doing this for someone paying money, I would use Kilz to prime the piece, but for this one I just slapped on some paint. When it cures good, I am going to add a matte coat of polyurethane. I used a foam roller to keep down the brush strokes" we should get together and you can tell me how Lee made money doing this, haha!

cookingwithgas said...

Lee did a lot of this, you just need to get the word out.
She always had a piece in the works.
Okay, so I could use some Kilz and then go after it with paint.
This might be my January project.
We do need to see one another.
I will be ready for a day out soon.

Anonymous said...

what a transformation! you have so many talents, how ever will you choose?! love that map pull.

Tracey Broome said...

I KNOW! The map pull, isn't it great? They are all really good ones, photos don't portray them nearly as great as they are.

Anna M. Branner said...

Well done Tracey! I have a cabinet in my dining room that needs some work...one of these days. We have a store in Fburg that does just this. There is definitely a market for it!

June Perry said...

Love the idea of using non matching draw pulls - so fun!

smartcat said...

What a neat thing to do make a used desk into something new that will be with Wesley all her life. The pulls are the perfect bit of cake frosting.

It's hard to believe how adult Wesley has become in the short time I have been following your blog.

Cheers and good fortune, Wesley!

Tracey Broome said...

Hi Anna, I see furniture all the time that just needs a little paint, I need a big old barn to put it all in!
Hey June, yeah,the drawe pulls make it, they were fun to pick out.
Suzi,Wesley has her very adult days and then some days, like her mom, she reverts to a four year old,haha! I hope the desk will hold lots of memories for her.....

Vicki said...

WOW! Awesome desk Tracey!
Love the drawer pulls - esp the map and the owl, so cool and individual.

The perfect colour too - great energy and creative stimulation.
Love it!

Tracey Broome said...

Oh yeah, I didn't even think of the energy the color has, but you are right. Should be good feng shui for her room!

Lori Buff said...

The desk looks great! I love the pulls. I'll cross my fingers that you find a chair soon.

Amy said...

Okay, so this was like furniture re-painting 101 for me. Never have been to Hobby Lobby. Am obviously missing out! And as someone else said, yes Wesley stole that picture and rightly so- beautiful! With that good luck with the desk, am sure a chair is around the corner.

Michèle Hastings said...

beautiful!