Before and After: Desk to Scrapping Table!

I recently discovered a site called FreeCycle.  It's kind of like Craigslist, but with free stuff.  I signed up for one in our area (just our town, not Houston or any of our surrounding suburbs) just to try it out.  I get the emails and since I get emails on my phone, get the announcements on my phone.

Brandon was off on Friday and we were out running errands.  We got an email  OFFER:  DESK.  Now, I've been wanting a new scrapbooking table for a while and the lady listed her intersection as the one we were driving through at that second.  So I emailed her back and asked exactly where she was.  She replied (What the heck did we ever do before email?  And before smart phones?  How did we sell ANYTHING!?) and we headed over there.

This is what we found.

It's HUGE.  3 x 5 huge.  And it has a Rice University inventory tag.  I'm betting that it was a dorm room desk at some point in it's life.  That might explain just why the top was SOOOOO beat up.

I emailed her back and said, "We're taking it" and then Brandon and I had to figure out how to fit it in the van.  Car seats out and seats folded with a HUGE desk in the back, we headed to finish errands (grocery shopping).

We went to a festival Friday night so we didn't get to work on it until Saturday.  We bought some sandpaper after swimming lessons in the morning.  Brandon got out a sander that his dad sent us.  We had NO idea if it actually worked or not.  It did - long enough for the picture.  So we sanded the top by hand.  The rest of the desk was in pretty good shape so we just cleaned it.

I got the paint out that we used in Jordan's room, Breath of White, for the base.  It's white with just a hint of pink.  (Or if you're in the right light, purple or peach).  When the girls got up from nap, we headed to Lowe's to pick out hardware to replace the LOVELY handles.  And a dark brown for the top, Sasparilla.

3 coats of Breath of White, 2 coats of Sasparailla, a few 'oh, shoot!' moments (like spilling some paint, realizing it had legs, forgetting then remembering the pull out note pad things), a little elbow grease and less than $25 later, here is my new scrapbooking/crafting desk!

Now, to convince Brandon to get it upstairs.....hmmmmmm