Hi everyone, Q is for Quandie here!
Look at this pretty little secretary desk! Just check out that curvy serpentine front and those fabulous claw feet. Ignore the not so great hardware and the incredibly beat up finish. Not to mention all of that dust.
I knew that behind those flaws was a gorgeous piece of furniture.
Materials List:
How To:
As I was cleaning it, the water was turning decidedly orange-ish in color. That was a good indication that this piece was going to be a bleeder and since I was going to paint the outside in Dixie Belle’s Drop Cloth (a creamy white), I needed to find out for sure.
So I painted just one of the drawers as a test. Yep, definitely a bleeder. In other words, the orange-y colored stain on this piece was bleeding through my creamy white paint.
I’m sure many of you are familiar with this phenomenon, but in case you aren’t, when this happens you have to seal your piece with a stain blocking sealer before you can proceed with painting.
It doesn’t matter how many coats of paint you put over bleeding stain, that stuff will just continue to bleed thru. So I brought out the Dixie Belle BOSS.
I painted the outside of the desk with just one coat of the BOSS and then I let it dry for 24 hours. I’ve learned in the past that extra drying time can make a big difference with this product, so I now always let it dry for at least 24 hours.
The top drawer is my test drawer without the BOSS. The bottom one is another drawer with one coat of BOSS followed by two coats of Drop Cloth. That’s some pretty good blocking power.
Once I had the rest of the piece painted with two coats of Drop Cloth I had to wait for the next step. I knew I had the perfect transfer coming from Prima Marketing, but it wasn’t here yet. I’m not very good at waiting … tick tock, tick tock … but this one was definitely worth the wait!
This sweet serpentine secretary desk would be perfect to use bedside instead of a nightstand. You could keep all of your reading material inside. It would even be quite simple to set up some sort of charging station inside by cutting a hole in the back to allow cords to go through.
Of course, you could just use it as a desk. But it would also be a great spot for dropping your keys and mail in the foyer. You could fill the drawers with hats, scarves and gloves.
So many possibilities!
For more information about this piece, head to Q is for Quandie here!
