Freckled Horse: Desk and vanity Stool

These two pieces might be some of the best before and after pics yet! I got this desk out of an old abandoned house. It had been sitting untouched for about 20 years. The vanity stool came from the Salvation Army Store.

You wouldn't know it by looking at the pics now! Here are the before!

Pretty rough huh?

At first glance I admit, I thought it might be a lost cause. I started with the vanity stool. As you can see, it had an awful fabric and some awful paint. I took the seat off and used some fabric that I already had, and my staple gun and recoved the stool.

Looking better! I had never used stripes before, so I had to be a little more careful to keep them in line and not stretch the fabric too far. Once that was complete I decided I didn't want to spend a lot of time sanding. There were several layers of paint on this stool! So I used one of my favorite products! Deglosser!

This liquid sandpaper allows you to take off the shiny finish with no sanding. Just follow the manufactures instructions. I decided not to prime. The deglosser had left it pretty sticky so I did not think it would be necessary. I painted it a nice off white and let it dry. It took two coats to cover the green!

Next I distressed using my ryobi sander that my wonderful husband bought me! I have literally gone through 3 sanders since I started this venture! I wanted it pretty chippy. because it had so many layers of paint, I was able to distress at different depths for different color tones.

great little tool! Really does the trick!

Next i used some stain. I think it was dark walnut. Anything you have on hand will work. I usually use a q-tip or small brush and only stain the sanded areas, but because I want to distress this alot, I rubbed those areas first and then came back with a soft cloth and rubbed it all over. It creates the look of glaze, a little more distressed.

Put the seat back on and Tada!

Now the Desk..... The laminate on the top was in really bad shape. It had alot of water damage.

So I had to remove it. I was left with a pretty rough finish. I decided to sand it lightly, but just leave it pretty rough. I had painted a buffet for my daughter's wedding, and it turned out really good, so I decided to use the same colors. I really pretty green, with a black glaze for the drawers, and a cream color for the body of the desk. The desk was covered in a really thick coat of some kind of poly or something. I sanded the drawers pretty much to the wood and then primed them.

The red mahogany kind of bled through, but I thought it looked pretty good, so I only primed on coat.

Then I painted the drawers green. Two coats, drying in between. (hardest part)

Then used my sander again to sand the edges.

I like to sand a little extra where the handles would naturally be worn.

I took some stain and carefully rubbed the sanded areas to age. I decided to use the original hardware, because it had kind of a vintage look, and the green was just right.