It is important to have a peaceful work space. For me, this means clean, uncluttered and pretty. I have a desk where I do my “real” job (aka the one that pays the bills) but I needed something else for my creative work. When my sister told me she was getting rid of this desk, I jumped on the opportunity to make something new out of it. You can see the before picture below.
This was no small undertaking. I had never refinished furniture before. I scoured Pinterest for tutorials, bought the chemicals and got to work. The stripping involved painting on toxic chemicals and then wiping/scraping all of it off. It smelled horrible and it was majorly messy. Once that part was done, I sanded the whole thing (see the lighter color version of the desk above). Then came the fun part! I decided to stain the top a warm brown color and paint the base of the desk off white, inspired by the Whitney Desk at Pottery Barn. It turned out better than I could have imagined and I’m glad I was brave enough to go for it.
A pretty desk needs a pretty chair, so I grabbed an old chair from our basement that had been handed down from my in-laws and got to work. I wasn’t interested in going through the work of refinishing again, so I went with chalk paint which supposedly you can paint over anything. I didn’t even sand the surface. It went on a little clumpy, but I sanded it in areas to give it a weathered look and it turned out pretty nice. The fabric on the seat was old and stained, so I ripped it off and re-covered it with some adorable fabric from Ballard Designs. Ballard is a go-to for home decor and they have so many awesome fabrics you can buy by the yard. I used the Dodie Beige, which is sort of a leopard polka dot print. I think it has kind of a Kate Spade vibe to it.
So now I have a lovely work space that cost very little to put together. I love it. This is where I sit to sew, create and dream!
