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DESK  RESTORATION

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What You'll Need

citri strip fruitwood minwax stain gold oak minwax stain gunstock stain Microfiber towels Minwax highlighting wax Johnsons furniture wax Thick Paper towels Lacquer thinner Metal Paint Scraper Hardware

Step 1

After testing multiple products I settled on citri strip. I found the best way to get the paint off was to let it set for 24 hours.

Step 2

CLEANING THE PAINT STRIPPER!  It was so hard to remove the sticky mess. I tried doing it with paper towel but, it wasn’t really working that well so I opted out for microfiber towels. Eventually the best way I found to do it was to pour lacquer thinner onto it or dip a scoring pad into the thinner and rub the desk with the scoring pad.

Step 3

SANDING! I used my dual sander to sand the desk overall and sanded by hand in all the corners.

Step 4

BLEACHING YOUR WOOD+ USING THE RIGHT PRODUCTS! For this next step I decided because I’m not able to sand it enough to remove the stain I would bleach the wood. I found an article online and followed the instructions. I definitely regretted doing this! Not because the wood didn’t look good. In fact I loved how the bleach made it look. It smelled horrendous!  I eventually found out how dangerous it is to use the wrong bleach on your wood project.

Step 5

STAINING THE WOOD! For the first time ever I decided to try mixing my stains to get the exact color I wanted. I love this idea! It works perfect and let’s you customize so easily!  To stain my desk I used mostly fruitwood stain in the minwax brand and added a bit of english chestnut and gunstock in the same brand and stain type. This gave me a beautiful stain color. I applied the stain with a paper towel and wiped any leftover stain off right away.

Step 6

FINISHING OFF AND WAXING YOUR WOOD! Because I wanted to keep the wood matte I decided to use a wax. I also wanted to see if a white wax would make it look any better. I’ll be honest I wasn’t happy at all with the desk at this point. It looked so blotchy. It’s almost like the desk was built using 3 different types of wood. I found a white wax at lowes and gave it a try.

Loving how the desk turned out! I’m so glad I completed it. Can’t say how many times I wanted to quit and write it off as a fail! It turned out way better than I expected!

Tilted Brush Stroke

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LILY ARDOR

A DIY BLOG, SHARING STORIES OF DESIGN BY LILY ARDOR