Dorm dud to office official.

Now that the little one is 6 weeks old, I’ve began working again this week. I’ve been blessed with the opportunity to split my time working from home and working in the office. I’m not certain I will be able to make it all work {working from home & taking care of an infant & maintaining my workload}, but Eugene & I both agreed after much prayer that this was a God-sized opportunity that we at least needed to give a chance.

We’ve been working to create an office space for me, and we picked our third bedroom as the spot. This bedroom is now the guest bedroom/office, and is very much still in the works. Here’s what it looked like when we moved in…

I wanted a bright desk, but we’ve had some huge costs for the house & family lately, so I knew I wanted to keep my budget as low as possible. My plan of attack was to hit up the same Salvation Army warehouse sale where I picked up my $1 coffee table. I hit the jackpot again, and drove away with this $5 dorm desk…

And to keep you from any suspense, here’s the before & after…

I’ll give ya the quick run-down of my process. I first removed the desk’s hardware…

I spray painted these with ORB {same paint I used to transform my bathroom faucet.} I then sanded the desk & gave it an unofficial priming coat with Rust-Oleum Painter’s Touch Ultra Coverage Satin Heirloom White {just because it was only a $1.60 at a local store. Why buy real primer; remember, I’m on a budget!} It’s dark out because I painted it super late while the little one slept. It only took one can to cover it for priming…

My next step was a couple coats of Rust-Oleum Painter’s Touch Ultra Coverage Satin Aqua. I used two cans with a little bit to spare, which was a good thing because the store only had 2 cans of this color in stock {also just $1.60 each!}

I used some sand paper to take a bit of paint off the edges to give it more of an antique/worn look. When I put the hardware back on & moved the desk into the room, I just wasn’t happy with it. It was too bright, too harsh…

So I decided to try to white wash it with a light gray paint {is it gray wash then?}. Basically, you water down your paint with a ratio of 1/3 paint to 2/3 water and use a brush to apply even long streaks and a cloth to wipe off the excess…

It worked perfectly – just enough gray to dull the bold color to a nice soft hazy turquoise…

Oh, and I had some extra scrapbook paper left over from my curbside changing table re-do, so I mod-podge’d it in the drawers as a liner…

And here’s the final version…

The legs are my favorite part…

You can see the gray wash & the corners where I sanded off some paint here…

So that’s my office desk. Not bad for a total of $11.40! Now I just have to figure out how to type with one hand so my other’s free for napping…

{So perfect.}