Last Sunday one of my fellow vendors at Reclaiming Beautiful posted a quick heads up about a garage sale in Stillwater on Facebook. Mr. Q just happened to be free, so as an experiment I sent him by himself with strict instructions to text me photos and prices before buying anything. One of the pieces he sent a picture of was this mid-century modern desk.
Lately the mid-mod stuff has just really appealed to me, and when he told me it was $10 I said “yes!”
Unfortunately, what I couldn’t see in Mr. Q’s quick phone photo was the water damage. See it on the legs? Yep, that’s water damage. There is also some fairly significant veneer damage around the edges of the top. Basically both of these factors rule out refinishing this piece with some Dark Walnut stain, which was originally what I wanted to do. The drawer fronts were in pretty good shape though, so I stripped and stained those, and painted the rest.
I also painted the handles on the drawers.
I’m still not sure about that choice. Maybe I should have left them wood. And maybe I should have painted the desk in a more subdued palette. Dark grey? Black? Oh, but what’s the fun in that? This is painted in Fusion’s Laurentien, one of my favorite aquas.
Obviously the chair I’ve used for staging my photos is all wrong. This desk needs a mod chair, like an Eames style chair …
Or this pretty aqua chair …
Use this picture of the desk without the chair to imagine it paired with one of these more modern chairs.
Yep, better, right?
This desk is priced to sell at $125. Anyone need a sweet little mid-century modern desk?
q is for quandie 
It is a pretty Mod Mod Piece!
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Thanks Darrielle!
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When you paint with Fusion and write about it in your blog, can I post the picture on my FB page and give you the credit?
Thanks, Mary Lou @ Miss Fancy Paints
Sent from my iPad
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Certainly you can! And thank you very much for asking!
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I like it in that color! I quit on the Fusion paint altogether, My china closet had a few spots that needed to be sanded because there were flakes, and it chipped off and left holes. I forgot to mention that I was finding these flakes and catching most of them while I was painting. I managed to cover the bleed through on the shelves with one coat of Tough Coat (no stinky shellac!), and on the roof I tinted some white chalk paint with just enough gray that it was dark enough to mask it. There is no light up in there, so that worked well enough for me.
Marian over at Miss Mustard Seed told me about using the Tough Coat instead of shellac. Life saver.
I might be interested in that desk as a nightstand. What are the dimensions?
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Desk is 40″ wide, 20″ deep and 29.5″ tall. Let me know if you want to see it. Otherwise, I’m planning to post it on CL tonight. I’ve used Tough Coat as well, in fact, I just posted about using it on this black and white dresser. I do like, but have found that sometimes I need two coats of it to really block a lot of bleeding. I would always use it indoors (because of non-stink factor). As for chipping and flakes with Fusion, I am totally drawing a blank. I haven’t run into any of those problems. However, I have run into ‘holes’ (at least I’m assuming we’re talking about the same thing) where the paint sort of separates from the surface. I was painting one of those pieces with a really smooth factory finish at the time, and I assumed that was my problem. I’m going to pick up some of Fusion’s Ultra Grip Primer today to see if that helps with those kinds of surfaces. I have a big hutch to paint that has that finish. I’ll keep you posted on how it goes.
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It is just a tad too wide. Too bad, because it would look really cute here and give me the height I need for a nightstand. My nightstands are wimpy looking.
The lady that sold me the Fusion paint is anxious for me to try it again. I will try a different color on the campaign dresser. I was talking to someone on facebook who said her first and only project with Fusion was a disaster. It all peeled off in strips. Who knows. Sometimes pieces just don’t behave. But I do think that chalk paint is more forgiving.
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You might be right about chalk paint being more forgiving. The benefit of the Fusion is that you don’t have to wax it, which can be a big deal in certain situations (inside a cabinet, on a really big piece). And really, the Fusion has a different ‘look’ than the chalk paint. Once you get used to them, I think they are both good products and it depends on what you personally prefer. Same with milk paint. I think they all have their place, and I use all of these three for different things.
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