Chalk Paint a Desk to Create a Home Office
If you find yourself working from home more and want to create a dedicated space where you can stay organized and focused, consider chalk painting a desk in a fun color that will add energy to your work day.
I have been up to furniture painting again, but not for items in my home. My youngest daughter moved into a bright and spacious apartment and I have been helping her get it decorated.
98% of the furnishings she has are family hand-me-downs. Some pieces are from my house and others are from both Ed and my parents. This desk is one of them. It belonged to my mom.
I painted the desk with my favorite DIY chalk paint recipe of mixing Calcium Carbonate Powder and Plaster of Paris with water and paint. My daughter wanted the finish to look old, so I used dark wax over clear wax and sanded it to give it patina.
She likes the mix of old and modern and this corner of her bedroom is a perfect example that mixing it up works just fine. I am a big believer of the saying “anything goes as long as you like it”. The way you put it all together and the confidence you exude in your choices is what makes personal style. If you like it – things just have a way of seamlessly going together.
I found the chair for the desk at my favorite thrift shop for a pricey $6. It goes nicely with the floor. The rug is from HomeGoods.
If you have been following my blog for a few years, you may remember the art that I made for her college dorm room. You can find the tutorial for it in this post that I called my “Tissue Paper Picasso”.
Here is what the desk looked like before.
It was creamy yellow with a painted vine design.
The paint was leftover wall paint from my mudroom. The color I used is called Gentle Clarity from Glidden. I make all of my chalk paint with their Premium line of paint in a satin finish.
If the leftover paint is sealed air-tight, it can last for a few months.
How to Achieve an Aged Finish with DIY Chalk Paint
I painted two coats of DIY chalk paint on the desk, you can find a few tested recipes for it,here and here. I let the first coat dry completely before applying the second coat. When it was dry, I applied one coat of Fiddes and Sons Paste Wax in Clear and buffed it. I then applied dark wax from CeCe Caldwell. I applied it to one area at a time and then quickly rubbed it all over and buffed so it would spread out and get into all the nooks and grannies of the surface. Once I had the dark wax on, I wiped quite a bit of it off until my daughter told me she liked the way the finish looked.
The nice thing about wax, you can move it around and wipe it off to achieve whatever depth of darkness you want. I waited to sand the edges to age the desk even further after the dark wax was applied so the exposed wood would be light in color, not dark. (If you sand the edges to age the finish before adding dark wax, the sanded wood will become stained with the dark wax.) To smooth the aged sanded areas, I wiped clear wax over them to smooth. This is an optional step, the edges can be left bare which gives the finish a more rustic look.
When I sanded, I also exposed some of the original green accent paint color on the desk. I like the way this looked – gives the finish more depth.
After my dad passed away, my sisters, brother, and daughters needed to clean out his apartment. We each took the furnishings and items that we could use or had a special meaning to us. The rest was donated.
I think my mom would be quite happy, not only with the desk’s transformation, but the fact that it is now being loved and used by one of her grandchildren.
If you are interested in finding out more on how to make and paint with DIY chalk paint, check out these posts:
DIY Chalk Painted Furniture Makeovers
DIY Homemade Chalk Paint Review Update
Testing 1…2…3…Versions of Chalk Paint
