Modern Executive Desk Makeover

Friends, my office makeover for the One Room Challenge is slowly starting to come together! This week I managed to finish my desk makeover and I LOVE the way it turned out.

I am very excited to be working with some great sponsors for this room makeover. The paint and wax used for this project were provided to me by DecoArt, but all opinions are my own. This post also contains affiliate links, you can read more about my policies here.

Here’s a reminder of the starting point:

My mother had this desk made for her about 25 years ago. It’s a beautiful piece that’s made of solid wood. When she moved her office downstairs, the desk was unable to move with her – so I started using it.

To fit in with my new modern office, I wanted to give this desk a makeover with a combination of warm (not red) wood and black paint.

Mission accomplished.

I’m so happy with how this turned out – a complete transformation!

Stripping the red stain ended up being a lot more work than I was expecting, but I think it was totally worth it.

I started by using a chemical stripper which removed the protective finish and a significant amount of stain, and then I sanded off the remaining colour. While I wasn’t able to remove 100% of the red, once I applied the new stain it wasn’t really noticeable.

For the remaining areas I used DecoArt Americana Decor Satin Enamels paint in Classic Black. This was my first time using this paint and I am really impressed with the coverage and finish. It doesn’t require a primer or a top coat has a It’s a nice alternative if you don’t want the matte finish of a chalk paint.

I used pretty much an entire 8 oz jar  to do two coats on this desk. Painting over red stain is always tricky, if I was to do it again I would probably do a coat of shellac first (like I did on these bookcases) to help prevent the red grain from coming through – but it didn’t end up being that big of a deal.

To help protect the stained top and drawer fronts I used DecoArt Clear Crème wax and then finished off the fronts with new matte black hardware.

Desk Makeover Materials

Paint Stripper

6” Orbital Sander with 40, 80, 100 & 150 grit sanding disks

Minwax Gel Stain in Chestnut

Americana Decor Satin Enamels Paint in Classic Black

DecoArt Clear Cream Wax

Matte Black Cabinet Pull

I’m excited to have my desk done, but I still have quite a few projects I’m trying to get finished – oh and also everything else I need to get done before my mum and I leave for our cruise – Hopefully everything things will move along quickly now!

Here’s my updated office makeover to-do list:

• Move Chris across the hall into what will become his new office
• Create a temporary office in the spare room (this girl still needs to work!)
• Paint the walls (goodbye yellow!)
• Refinish my desk
• Sew new chair cushion covers
• Paint some of my small Ikea storage units
• Rearrange the furniture
• Install new lighting, outlets & switch
• Makeover antique “guest chair”
• Figure out some sort of wall planner system
• Find fun accessories to decorate!

Thanks for visiting and following along with my makeover project. Make sure to visit this week’s post on the One Room Challenge site to see more makeover progress posts!