>My girly stenciled desk!

Posted by christinasadventures on January 1, 2011 · 96 Comments 

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I can’t tell you how excited I am to share this with you. This has been a LONG project, and one of my most exciting projects EVER!

Back in September, I got this desk for FREE. Yes, free. FreeCycle is very good to me. You HAVE to check out your local chapter online! I got it from a lady who said it was from her niece’s second divorce. OK. Well, it found a forever home at my house. I was so excited in the beginning, and we took the hardware off, sanded, and primed the drawers.

And then, it sat. For months. Until Christmas break, when I finally bit the bullet and finished this pretty lady!

Since I got this desk for free, I wanted to try to refinish it using a little money as I could. So I kept the hardware, instead of buying new handles. I also got a giftcard to Lowes for my birthday in November, so I used that to get some paint. It was my first time not buying a mistint, and I was way too excited 🙂 I got a very pale gray semi-gloss. So after filling in the holes in the desk, sanding it down, and priming it (I HATE PRIMING), I painted it with my new exciting paint:

Dang it. I swear it is gray. You just really can’t tell…it is SO close to white! My original idea was to paint the desk a light muted gray, and then to stencil in white on top. Well, that couldn’t happen with this color. SO, I went to plan B. I figured I could reverse the colors, even though I wasn’t too excited about it. But I just poured some paint in a bowl, and mixed some leftover black paint in with it until I got the right gray color.

Then, I took out my stencil that I WON from Cutting Edge Stencils (through Keeping it Simple). Woohoo! My first experience with them…and it totally won’t be my last. They were awesome! The stencil designs are beautiful, they’re well-made, come with great clear instructions, and they are so professional! So, I started stenciling:

OK, so this was my first big stencil ever. I definitely made some mistakes when I got too impatient. Because it took a LONG time. And I’m a very impatient crafter. The easy part was the top of the desk. Where I really got frustrated was when I tried to “wrap” the stencil down the desk and around the sides. Not fun. So I ended up free-handing some of the painting in the middle and the grooves, and you can’t even tell! Yay! I used almost the full stencil on the top/right hand side of the desk, and then used a smaller branch from the stencil on the bottom left hand side to balance it out a little:

Then, I pulled out some of this spray-paint for the hardware:

I usually use Oil Rubbed Bronze for metals & hardware, but it was a little too “heavy” for this girly desk. I absolutely love this color! I am now converted!

I put the new hardware in, took a deep breath, and here she is:

Isn’t she beautiful!? Since I love a good before & after:

I am in love. And what’s even better? I only had to pay for the spray paint! Because I won the stencil, and I used a birthday giftcard for the paint, I only ended up paying $2.97 for this entire thing. So not only is she beautiful, but the price makes me a million times happier!

She now has replaced my old desk, and houses all things girly in the corner of my bedroom. Now I need to re-do a matching chair and lamp…but not today 🙂

You know I’ll be linking up to the parties on my sidebar…let me know what you think!!

Filed under Desk, Freecycle, gray, stencil, thrifty