Meet Uffda

Free.  I love free.  Yet, when Josh and I arrived to pick up the free desk, I became a little nervous.  Uffda...this might be more work than I anticipated.  

Still.  I was determined.  I saw potential under layers of its paneling and ugly brown paint.

Here's Uffda before:

You can't see the drawers well, but, boy were they ugly!

What I thought was just a chip that could be sanded down, ended up being layers of thin wood covering.  My husband and I spent lots of time with the hammer and screw driver.  This was not a fun job!

This was one of those "why am I doing this?" moments!  Eventually, we got down to the bare wood.  I scraped off all the glue I could and used stripper to strip the varnish around the sides to prepare it to be stained.

After hours of painting, stripping, filling in gaps and the old screw holes, yanking off old paneling, staining, and layering on poly...along with painting and recovering a chair that I also found for free...here is Uffda now:

                              

                                                

                                 

                                                

                                                

I bought the drawer knockers on Etsy.  Although I thought about distressing the desk, I felt the lines were more modern and I wanted a clean look.  But, I wanted to add some vintage elements like the pulls to reflect its old age.  Even though I really am in love with my dear friend Uffda, it's for sale.  Right now, there's no place for it in our home.    

Uffda is painted Valspar's Blue Arrow in flat enamel.  

What do you think?