My First Rendezvous with Refinishing

Hi All! I'm keeping it short and simple today. It's Furniture Feature Friday over at Miss Mustard Seed's so I'm linking up for the first time. I'm so excited to finally be participating after sitting on the sidelines for so many months! Want to know what I'm linking? Here's a peak but be sure to read on to see the rest!

Several months ago I purchased a desk off of craigslists to place in our loft/office area. The desk had great details but the finish was very worn and needed some TLC. Amongst all of my excitement to get started on my very first refinishing project I never snapped a before picture. Bummer! (Sadly this is not the only time I've done this.)  To give you an idea of what it looked like it was stained very dark and had an Art Deco finish.  Typically Art Deco is not my thing but for some reason this piece totally pulled it off.

I had originally planned on sanding the entire piece and restaining but quickly realized that I did not have the patience time or tools for such a job at that point. I pondered for a while after deciding against sanding the entire piece and finally decided to stain the top with Minwax's Dark Walnut stain and use Rustoleum's Heirloom White for the body. After envying so many transformations around blogland that featured dark stained tops and crisp white bases I decided this was my chance to try it out. Now I have to apologize for some of these pictures because they are truly craptastic. However, they are all I have to share at the moment. Here they are in all of their craptastic glory.

I personally think that despite my less than stellar photographs the desk is a true beauty. However, I may be slightly biased.

I also used the Dark Walnut stain as a glaze overtop of the Heirloom White. Once I had finished with the staining and painting I then worked through the piece and distressed some areas with sandpaper.

I replaced the old wooden knobs with these pretty Antiqued Brass knobs that I purchased at Home Depot for about 2 bucks a piece.

Overall, I am totally thrilled with how my desk turned out. In the end I believe I spent about $60 at the most to complete the entire project. Not too shabby if I do say so myself!

 I hope to make some progress on my kitchen this weekend to share with you all next week. Wish me luck!

Have a great weekend! :)