Thrift Store rescue #9 | $5.00 Mid Century Desk Restoration

I found this desk in the thrift store actually I found it twice in a thrift store the first time they had it marked at $45 which was more than I wanted to pay for it considering all the work that it needs but then I went back to the same thrift store a week later and they had it marked down to $5 on clearance and $5 I couldn't afford not to buy it so I picked it up for $5.00 the condition was pretty rough there were lots of scratches and dings and a piece of veneer missing on the lower back corner and the top was plastic laminate and the color was pretty pale and unattractive it may have looked better when it was new but at this point the color is so faded that I decided to go over it with some new walnut veneer I may end up keeping this desk for myself or I may sell it I'm not sure yet so I don't want to spend too much time on it if I decide to sell it then I want to make sure that I can make decent money on it considering the amount of hours that I'll have in it and this is not a high-end desk there's no name on it there's no brand name I would think that for a desk like this that's not a well-known brand like Lane or Roy Hill or a Drexel the value would probably top out around four maybe five hundred dollars in my area but that might even be pushing it more realistic value might be around three hundred in great shape so I want to keep that in mind as I'm working on it I began as I often do by stripping off the old finish and there's not much to this just get plenty of stripper on there and make sure it stays wet until the finish starts to come off in this case I probably left it on maybe for 15-20 minutes the finish was pretty thin and it came off easily once I've removed the stripper with the spatula then I usually go over it with some dry steel wool for wrought steel wool and that helps to pick up any remaining residue that's on the surface and then after that I usually go over it with steel wool again but this time also with mineral spirits and the steel wool helps especially on round surfaces like the legs where the spatula doesn't work too well once the surface had dried from the stripping process then I started working on this chip in the veneer and the chip was pretty deep it wasn't just the veneer surface it was also the surface underneath the substrate and it was so deep that it would have taken a few layers of veneer to fill it so I decided just to fill it with some epoxy wood putty the epoxy putty is pretty easy to use you just slice a piece off as much as you think you'll need and it's a two-part epoxy and the two parts come together in the roll you just have to mix it all together so you just knead it until it's all evenly mixed and then it's ready to use [Applause] and it helps if you wet your fingers a little bit when you're shaping the epoxy that way your fingers don't stick to it and I found it's just easier that way to get to get it as smooth as possible and the more you get it to your desired shape before it dries then the less sanding you'll have to do afterwards one of the drawers had a loose runner which happens often so I just reglued that down and I also went over all the runners with some 320 grit sandpaper and then waxed them and I did the same thing for the runner guides that are inside the desk and that just helps for the drawers to slide in and out easier I also had to reglue the dovetail joint and one of the drawers as you can see here it was pretty loose so I just used a syringe and shot some wood glue in there and then clamped it up the other side was pretty tight still so I didn't want to take the whole front off it didn't seem worth it to disturb the joint on the other side so I just used the syringe which is pretty handy in situations like this I tried to clean up the inside of the drawers as well and as you can see here there was an ink stain in this one and ink can be near impossible to remove from unfinished wood so I just went over it with a sander and just tried to get as much of it out as I could and this also got rid of a lot of the grime the other grime that was in the drawer [Music] next it was time to do the veneer on the top and the first step was to rough up the plastic laminate that was on there because it's very smooth and I want the glue to be able to stick to it so I just wanted a nice rough surface I think I probably used 80 grit sandpaper here and the veneer that I'm using is a walnut ten mill paperback veneer and I bought it a while ago in a four by eight foot roll for probably around $70 and I wouldn't have bought that just for this project considering the value of this desk I wouldn't have wanted to spend $70 on veneer for it but I've already used that veneer on at least two other projects and I still have more left over even after using it on this project so I feel like it's worth it in this case once the sanding was done then I applied the contact cement and I just used a roller for this and I applied it to the desktop and also to the veneer and you do have to apply it to both surfaces it will only stick to another surface that has contact cement on it and I basically followed the directions on the can you roll it on and then leave it for maybe 10-15 minutes until it feels dry to the touch and it'll look kind of shiny like it does here and at that point the two surfaces are ready to be put together before I laid the veneer on top I put some strips of wood on the top which will help me get the veneer lined up before it makes contact with the glue on the desktop so I laid the veneer over the pieces of wood got it lined up and then just one by one pull out the pieces of wood and press the veneer down and just to start with I just use my hand then once I had it all down I went over it again we had a piece of wood to apply as much pressure as I could to get the two pieces stuck together and this hasn't always worked perfectly for me I did have a couple of instances on other projects where I found some spots that weren't glued down after the fact and I found that it helps in those situations to warm up the surface a little bit with an iron and that seems to reactivate the glue and then press them together again and then it should stick and that's worked pretty well for me once the veneer was on then it was time to trim the excess around the edges and for that I used a router with a flush trim bit in it and the bit has a bearing on it that will ride along the surface and will create a flush cut on the veneer [Music] after that I just went over the edges with some sandpaper by hand just to clean up any roughness I then moved on to the front of the desk to this edge here that have some pretty deep and rough wear on it and I first considered trying to rebuild the edge with some putty but I decided that would have been too much time too many hours Adams the project so instead I decided just to even out the surface by sanding it and using a rasp to just create a nice consistent edge so that it didn't look like where it just looked like more of the factory finish so it was just a nice consistent sweeping curve to that edge and then it was time to sand the entire piece and on the sides and the drawer fronts I use some 180 grit and then 220 grit by hand and they didn't need a lot I just sanded lightly they were in pretty good shape I just wanted to knock down any grain that had been raised from the stripping process and I also sanded down that spot where I put the putty in just to get it smooth and flush with the rest of the veneer I also sanded the top the new veneer and for this I used an orbital sander and I started with 120 then went to 150 and 180 and then 220 and I did that much sanding on it because this veneer had been sitting in my basement for a long time and had been moved around a lot and kind of banged up and it just had some marks and things on it that I wanted to get rid of after the sanding was done then it was time for staining and the challenge here was to get the color of the top the new veneer on top to work with the color of the rest of the desk and as you can see here I'm wetting it down with some naphtha so you can see the color and it's more Brown than the veneer on the rest of the desk the old veneer on the desk is more of an amber reddish color I started out by going over the sides and the drawer fronts and the top with some walnut oil stain and this was I think American walnut by Vera Thayne I didn't let the stain sit on there very long before wiping it off I wasn't going for a really dark color I just wanted to even out the color a bit across the whole desk on the legs I used a gel stain instead of the regular vera Thane oil stain and I did this because the wood that the legs are made of is a lot lighter than the walnut veneer that's on the rest of the desk so the gel stain is thicker and it sits on the surface more almost like a paint and it'll just help to get that lighter wood closer to the color of the rest of the walnut veneer once everything was stained it was obvious that the new veneer on top was still more Brown than the rest of the desk to try to get the color of the top closer to the rest of the desk I applied a stain buy Minwax called gun stock which almost looks like a rusty water when it's in the can but it's got a lot of red in it and my hope was that this would get it closer to the rest of the desk it wasn't gonna be an exact match but I just didn't want us as Brown as it was and this worked well I liked how it looked after the stain had dried then I left the stain to dry overnight the next day would be time for the top coat for the top coat I applied a satin wipe on oil polyurethane and I generally like to apply thin coats I applied a little bit more on the top than the rest of the desk just considering how much use it will be getting you may find after your finish has dried that it feels a little rough to the touch or maybe you have some dust that got caught in there and there are a few different ways to smooth it out but one really easy way is just to take a brown paper bag just cut off a piece of it fold it up and just go over the whole surface with it you don't have to press really hard just gently go over it and I guess the paper is a mild abrasive because it does smooth it out really nicely and it's pretty safe it's really hard to damage the finish with this and if your finish is good and dry you'll probably see some white dust on the paper after going over the surface a few times and here's the finished product and this is the spot where I applied the epoxy putty and after I applied the putty I went over it with some gel stain kind of dabbed it on there to darken it a bit and I tried to apply some streaks to mimic the grain but luckily it's in the back lower corner where it won't be seen very often thanks for watching you

Channel: Dashner Design & Restoration

Views: 339,049

Rating: 4.8919058 out of 5

Keywords: #mid century, diy, restoration, thrifting, thrift store, furniture refinishing

Id: 6gb5cJopUpo

Length: 15min 44sec (944 seconds)

Published: Sat Apr 27 2019