This fabulous 1920's desk was found in a back bedroom at my grandparents house a few months ago. My grandmother's sister had originally gotten it from someone she knew on Knotts Island, NC (where their family is from) and it was originally a bedroom vanity. She didn't have room for it so she gave it to my grandparents and then forgot about it. It was not in the best shape, so they stuck it in a back bedroom and also forgot about it for decades. One fateful day I was looking for something completely different back there and noticed the shiny brass hardware and the unique wood colors on the drawers. I unearthed it from junk that had been piled on it and asked if they minded if I took it home and fixed it up. They were happy to let it go, so Ben and I decided to make it our new desk! First of all, here is what it looked like when we found it:
Pretty rough! There was such discoloration on the top that we didn't think it would ever even out. Ben sanded the top down to blond wood and then we put a mineral oil and coffee grounds mixture on it to restore moisture to the parched-looking wood. This is a trick that can be used to revive an old finish, so we wanted to see if it would work. Here's how it looked:
Definitely better, but not as nice as we were going for. So we got out the stain. It was an easy match, a reddish brown that I ended up matching almost perfectly. We put it on the top and the drawer fronts, as everywhere else was still stained and hadn't faded as much. Then we put on a clear polyurethane coat to protect it and add some shine. This is how it ended up:
We were amazed at the transformation. Aside from the worn off finish and faded stain, it had NOTHING else wrong with it, so after we refinished it it became almost like new! Here it is, enjoying its new life as our desk. Certainly better than sitting under a pile of junk, forgotten in a back room!
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