Office Desk Makeover

After sharing our update weeks ago about our decision to tackle our orange wood desk, we’re finally sharing the finished product!

To recap, it started off like this…

And we left off like this…

And now she looks like this!

Ooo Ahh, no more orange! So back to the nitty gritty. We let the primer dry for the full seven days to cure, and then started with our Behr white semi-gloss paint.

The whole top shelving unit got 3 coats, and the bottom base got about 4.

We wanted to spice up the drawers a bit so we took the same Napoleonic Blue Annie Sloan chalk paint we used on our nightstand, and gave the drawers and small pull out section two coats inside and out.

We finished up the job with some clear soft wax and added new hardware (the hinges just got painted to match to save $).

Once the base and top of our desk was totally dry, it got a few coats of water based Polycrylic in clear satin to protect it from wear and tear. We chose this because of the bright white color (polyurethane tends to yellow) and the water based because we were covering latex based paint.

Last but not least, we took some cute stripped wrapping paper found at Marshalls and cut pieces to fit the back of the shelves. This kept the desk from feeling too bottom heavy with the dark drawers and gave it a little more personality!

Tip: We use a sewing tape measure when trying to measure tight spaces since you can manipulate it better than a bulky builders tape measure.

We used double sided tape to attach the paper so that if we ever wanted to change it up or convert it back to the plain white, it would be easy to do so.

After a few shopping trips to Target and Marshalls (the were having a mercury glass sale apparently so I picked up everything in sight! can you say #fabfound) the shelves were officially filled and the desk project was complete : )

I love having pretty blank cards around the house that can be used for any occasion, so displaying them up on this cute owl cake stand from West Elm just makes them easier to access and a part of the decor.

After this desk update and our new accent chairs, the guest room/office to just an office takeover is officially complete! (the guest room moved to Paige’s old room) Now my only problem is that every room in the house is “done” for now. Let’s see how long that lasts… : )

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