The Desk that Rocks my World!!

I've seen a lot of inspiring furniture renovations in blogland and have taken a real interest in it myself. I wish I had more time and actual work space to dedicate to it, but no dice. When I came across THIS desk on one of my favorite sites, www.betterafter.blogspot.com, I knew I had to have a super fab desk of my own. I was super excited for Yard Sale season to start so I could score me a super cheap desk I could make over. Thanks to a sweet old man, I found one for $15 that even came with a chair. Granted, the chair didn't match but at $15 I didn't care one bit!! It found a new home in my garage until I found inspiration and could decide what to do with it. A few trips to Hobby Lobby later, I saw this fabric and the idea was clear.

The background is black with white & charcoal gray damask type pattern with a magenta pink damask for a pop of color. I saw it and immediately knew what I wanted to do: a black high gloss desk, white handles, white chair and this fabric as the seat of the chair. I was so excited to get started.

Here's the desk originally. It was a beautiful cherry color and had the top not been scratched up, I may have went a different route, but it was so, yay!

Look at those lines!!

And here's the chair that totally doesn't match!

I worked on the chair first. I took off the seat, sanded it down, primed and spray painted the chair. It's not 100% perfect but it's still adorable!!

Sanded

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Primed & Painted

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Ta-Da!!! Love!

I had some help using the heavy duty staple gun because it was a major pain. After completing the entire project, this girl had a Christmas list going...

Arrow Heavy Duty Electric Staple/Nail Gun

Homax Aerosol Spray Gun

Electric Sander

But I digress....

After removing all the handles and taking the drawers out, I got to sanding. I decided to put a spin on it. Even though the desk would be black, I wanted the drawers to be a different color when you pulled them out. A little more visual interest. Here we are in painting progress (and by we I mean the different parts of the desk. There was no way anyone was taking a pic of me in that funny looking mask!)

I used painters tape and news paper to cover the front of the drawers that I didn't want gray. I used my left over gray primer and white primer to prime the desk. I must be honest at this point though, once I saw the white primer on the desk, I was starting to wonder if choosing black was a mistake. It looked so pretty and feminine with the white, but I already had the black, and the idea in my head, so I kept going. I got out my Glidden high gloss black and went to town. It took 3 coats to get it just right but I loved it!! Then I coated it with this bad boy:

Minwax Water Based Polycrylic Protective Finish in Semi Gloss. I wanted something that was an easy clean up without the smell so this was the perfect option. It goes on cloudy and dries clear. I finished up by spray painting the handles white. For my final touch of fabulous, I used spray adhesive and lined the inside of the drawers with fabric. I really couldn't love it more. After seeing how wonderful it turned out, I'd love to do another one but in a completely different way!! Here she is in all her glory...

Wanna see her in action? She's settled into her home and is doing a fantastic job :)

So chic and so stylish!! I love it!!! Yes, I also made the garbage can to match!! Don't you just want one too??

China Cabinet of Awesomeness

I told you about the steal I found on craigslist...a $60 China Cabinet. It was something out of the early 80's with someone's attempt at sprucing it up, with turquoise trim. Hideous? Yes. But my good fortune!! Here's a reminder.

Yup, ugly, but such potential. I knew I wanted to do something different with her (yes, she's a she!) since I was revamping my dining room. I wanted to get rid of the wire things in the side windows and also remove the hideous gold with black flecks background. I know nothing says modern and chic like gold with black flecks, but it had to go!

I took it apart and got to work. My dining room was going green and I wanted it to be sophisticated so I knew I needed to find awesome fabric to make curtains. I decided after seeing some cool furniture reno's that I wanted to have fabric as my background. My favorite color is turquoise so when I found this awesome fabric that allowed me to tie in the green using turquoise, I couldn't be more excited!! This was my inspiration:

The green matched the color I picked for the dining room, it was predominately turquoise plus had some awesome plum in it. I mean, who doesn't love a splash of purple??

I have an awesome dad who knows people and got me some primer and paint for my cabinet so all I had to out of pocket for the project was the $60 and $40 on fabric, but the $40 included the fabric I made the curtains from. Not too shabby!! I busted out my ipod, put Mumford & Sons on repeat and spent 3 days removing screws, painting, adding the fabric, then replacing the screws. Here's the in progress.

Here are the gold handles before silver spray paint

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See that turquoise up close? This is pre-primer.

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Now see how much better that looks??

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Here's the top painted, before the fabric is put over the awesome gold backer

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It's laying down so I can stand in it and put the fabric down with glue.

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I was happy with how it turned out. I had intentions of antiquing it with black glaze but I loved the stark white against the fabric and also the green walls. It's not perfect by any means, but I'm super proud of it and extremely happy with how it turned out!! Here she is in all her Awesomeness!!!

You know you love it!!