Refinishing an old desk

As I had mentioned in a previous post, my girlfriend and I recently got a new apartment together, and we needed some furniture. Being rather handy, I wanted to make or refinish as much of the furniture as possible. My girlfriend needed a desk (shes a teacher), so I refinished my dads old teaching desk for her use. The original desk was about 100 years old and had three different finished piled on top of each-other. It also had brass hardware that had turned black with age. I started by removing all the drawers and repairing any physical damage to the desk and drawers. I made sure they all fit correctly and closed, and any weak spots were re-enforced where necessary. Next a chemical stripper was used to loosen the old finishes and a very time consuming process of sanding, filing and scraping was undertaken to remove everything. Next I primed and painted the desk and drawers white to make the turquoise color my girlfriend selected really pop. I then spray painted a base coat of turquoise color and hand painted a few layers on top of the mausoleum blue lagoon color. Lastly, I sprayed clear lacquer on any area that would see alot of use (the top and drawers) and then coated the entire desk in a layer of clear polyurethane. The handled were soaked in a vinegar and water mixture for a few hours and then hand polished twice with brass-o. Do not ever coat antique brass with a clear coat to preserve the finish; it will destroy the brass.  If enough people care/are interested I will do a full write-up on how to do this.

The original desk; note the blackened hardware and terrible finish

the finished desk!

heres what the drawers looked like to begin with

that black hardware is actually brass!

working on making them shiny

shiny brass hardware!

beautiful blue drawers

stripping all the old finish off the desk

stripping off more finish and fixing/gluing

desk was primed and painted white

started with rustoleum blue lagoon spray paint

was having trouble with coverage

I just went and had enamel paint mixed for me that matched the blue lagoon

much better looking than the spray paint. multiple wet-sandings of 1200 grit to get this finish

couple of coats of lacquer spray on the top and areas mostly likely to be touched, then a coat of polyurathane

re-finished brass hardware added; looks great!

added some brass corner guards to give the desk more character

Once our office area is cleaned up I will post some better finished product pictures here