Meet Sam(antha)

Remember Sam? This poor gal had been through the wringer.  Spiders and dead insects inhabited her nooks & crannies.  Her drawers had been taped shut with packing tape (please, for the love of chocolate, never use packing tape on furniture!  Use painter's tape!) and she was left on a back porch to sun bake and warp.

Fortunately, she has great bones! Dovetail and tongue/groove joinery on the drawers, corner block & rail joinery...sigh.  Too bad someone replaced the top with a horrible faux-wood veneer plasticky-thing.  Thank goodness we decided on painted surfaces!  I'm not quite ready to tackle a rebuild yet.  

Stanky really only had one request.  Gold.  He was bummed that I nixed the 100% gold desk (shiny, not yellow), but he is only 5, so it's more about me than him at this point.  I did nip some 24 karat gold spray paint from dad's garage, and I hit all of the hardware with that.  It's going to come off the ceramic knobs, but we are looking for something to replace them.  Stanky was so happy with the hardware that he had me spray paint his scooter gold. 

I really had to attack the old tape before I could get anywhere with anything.  Goo-gone and a good sharp scraper did the trick.  I also found that someone had probably used poor Sam in the garage at some point, since there were paint splatters in several shades of white and taupe all over her legs and back.  Thankfully, primer was on the agenda. 

I had decided on some Valspar Navy Blue spray paint that we already had on hand for the body of the desk, but I planned poorly and ran out.  Apparently, Valspar discontinued Navy Blue (um, why?) and replaced with Indigo Blue Cloth.  It's a great blue, just not the same.  So I ended up having to repaint that which was done, and double-coat that which wasn't.  Lesson learned.  

The drawer fronts were painted out in a contrasting green that I had left over from a project I did for my new nephew's nursery. 

But...it was all just too BRIGHT.  I decided to do some light distressing (remember, this is for a 5-year old boy, with both older and younger brothers - it's going to get distressed no matter what!) and apply a glaze using some dark walnut stain I had.  

Note to self - next time, get some dark wax or glaze with acrylic, because stain sucks!  

Don't get me wrong, I like (more or less) how it turned out, but the stain was so messy and stinky!  The glaze really did mellow the colors well, and the distressing allows both the white primer and the original wood color to peek through.  About halfway through the first drawer I realized that the glaze was pretty much the same color as the boys' grubby hands, so it really is perfect for this.

Here she is, almost finished.  I still need to apply a coat of polycrylic before she goes upstairs, but I couldn't wait.  For some reason, the stain would not adhere to part of the top, but I have an idea for that as well.  We may be breaking out the coloring books and ModPodge soon! (Pay no attention to the tools behind the desk!  I am the great, and powerful, uh, Sam...)

PS - my camera died, so these are all camera phone shots.  I apologize for my lack of proper staging and photography this go-round.  I promise it will get better!

Linking up here:      Miss Mustard Seed