Wednesday, January 21, 2009

Desk Job


So, I have rescued a lovely old desk that was destined for firewood from my workplace. It is lovely and heavy and has the most beautiful grain - the only thing is it needs a bit of love, as you can see on the top surface. The varnish is chipping off and it has some watermarks. From what I can tell by by internet sleuth work, I need to strip it, sand it, and re-varnish it with a very similar if not the same colour varnish. Anyone an expert?

5 comments:

Michelle said...

not an expert but have done some.. it can be a lot of work but well worth it. very beautiful :)

Anonymous said...

..it really is a beautiful thing..congrats on getting a hold of it!...just depends what you'll do with it..if it's going to be used daily and covered with 'stuff'..i'd just leave it as is because you'll be worried about marking it...but if it's just going to sit and look gorgeous i'd strip sand and oil...maybe see if the local library has a book to follow...but before doing anything i'd try some furniture polish and see what that did...look forward to seeing how it goes...

Beadsme said...

I hope someone can help you.

Carley said...

Emma - it's gorgeous!! Very jealous of that find

Sweetpea4kids said...

Gorgeous table. I'm no expert, but I had a professional re-varnish some orginal internal door in my house. He didn't strip with sandpaper (even though I have seen that being done), he stripped it with some sort of amonia or alchol. The amonia sort of pulled the varnish out of the wood. I guess he used this method because they were antique doors. He then varnished them when they were stripped back to their original colour.

Hope that helps.