Boy oh boy, it felt good to work on an actual piece of furniture again!  It has been awhile.

You may remember that I found this shabby, primitive desk at a garage sale a couple of weeks back, and I only paid a whopping $4 for it!

It was definitely in rough shape.  And it got even rougher after I dropped the drawer on the pavement while loading it up in the car.  It broke into more pieces than I would have thought possible.

The desk itself was super wonky too, it definitely had some loose joints.

So the drawer went to Ken’s workshop to be repaired, and in the meantime I glued up all of the joints and now the desk feels quite sturdy.

I had initially thought I would try to salvage the original chippy paint finish by just cleaning it really well, but after spending about 15 minutes cleaning just one 3″ x 3″ section I decided that was going to require way too much effort for minimal results.  It would be so much easier to just paint it, and then distress it back again.

I really liked the original color, which was sort of a pale blue-green, so I decided to stick with a similar palette.  After going through all of my paint looking for a suitable candidate, I pulled out one of Dixie Belle’s new colors called Olive Wood.

It definitely doesn’t have as much blue in it as the original color, it’s more of a pale grey green rather than a blue green.  It has that perfect primitive vibe though, and I thought it would work beautifully on this desk.

I prepped the piece for paint by giving it a scuff sanding with 220 grit sandpaper, followed by a good cleaning with TSP substitute.

I followed that up with two coats of Olive Wood.  Once dry, I sanded with 220 grit paper again to distress the edges and smooth out the finish.

You’ll notice that I didn’t paint the top.  In fact, I didn’t do anything to the top except give it a good cleaning.

I think that the scratches and ink stains speak to a life well-lived for this desk.

Plus, if I haven’t already mentioned it, I plan to hang onto this desk to use as a display piece for the Carriage House Sale.  So the only person who has to like the end result is me.

Once the drawer came back from Ken’s workshop, I removed the old knobs (one was broken in half) and found a different pair of wood knobs to paint up and add.

As a final touch, I added one of the paint inlays from I.O.D.’s Floriography collection to the front of the drawer.

After a quick spray with Rust-Oleum matte spray sealer over the inlay, I gave the entire desk a final topcoat of Dixie Belle’s clear wax.

I love how it turned out, a sweet, rustic, slightly primitive writing desk.

It will be perfect for displaying other items for sale at our next Carriage House Sale, although I’ll probably pop a price tag on it just in case someone is in the market for a simple desk.

Thank you to Dixie Belle Paint Co for providing their products used on this desk.