I have an odd method for refinishing furniture.

First I buy something I think is cool.  Then I abandon it for an embarrassing amount of time before I eventually start working on it.

In the case of this school desk, it was abandoned by me outside forever!  I picked it up at a yard sale & kind of set it on the side of our house after it was unloaded from the car.  It then sat on the side of our house for months!  I’m sure the people driving by our house were disgusted looking at it day in & day out!

Here are a few before pictures:

You can see the old blue paint!  It was chipping away & it was such a bright blue!

I finally got my act together & convinced my husband that we should give it a makeover.  I wanted to sand the entire thing down to the bare wood, but after literal hours of sanding, I decided just to paint the legs & try to sand the top as best as I could.  My husband was out there sanding forever!  Then I took over & was sanding forever too—but we finally got the top sanded down!


I then painted the legs with Annie Sloan Chalk Paint® in Graphite.  I think Graphite is my favorite chalk paint color.  At first, I didn’t really like it, but it totally grew on me!  I want to paint everything Graphite…which reminds me, I need to buy another can because I have been painting everything Graphite!



I then waxed everything with Annie Sloan Clear Chalk Paint® Wax.  At first, I didn’t really like the wax on the bare wood.  It darkened it just a little & I wasn’t liking it at all, but it has since grew on me & now I love it!

I think the desk is super cute & I love the painted/bare wood look together!