Takin' It Off and Movin' On

My house is a tip. A desk is in the breakfast area, a breakfast table is in the game room and decorating items are scattered here, there and everywhere.

Not long after we returned home from the family reunion, The Boy bumped into a desk drawer while trying to get into our pantry.

I.Can.Not.Live.Like.This. he said. Something's got to be done.

And just so we're clear, Something's got to be done means Shannah, get this project finished. NOW!

So get busy I did. You might say, I became one fast stripper.

To refresh your memory, I discovered a great deal on an antique desk on Craiglist:

The lovely - but needy - desk

Beautiful - but wearing far too many layers of paint and assorted other stuff. I scoured the blogdom and found an eco-friendly, non-toxic stripper, Citristrip:

My weapon of choice

My first great error in judgment was trying to strip the desk outside. During July. In Texas. It was far too hot to complete the project - we could only work on it from 5:30 am-7 am. After two mornings of sweating it out, we managed to remove 3 of 8 layers of paint and primer:

Lots and lots of layers

The desk then moved inside, displacing everything from the breakfast room. I didn't care. It's air conditioned inside. (If only we'd been in town for more than four week out of the last ten weeks of the summer to have some time to work on it!)

But then The Boy declared that the work must get done and I moved into hyper drive. An afternoon of hard work, including scrubbing and sanding resulted in this:

All clean!

Now the desk is ready to repaint - the irony of immediately repainting a desk that I've spent nearly two months stripping is not lost on me - and move to its new location in the house.

Primed and ready to paint

I'm hoping it won't take me two months to decide what color to paint the desk...I'm planning to keep it pretty simple and true to its antique nature.

And I think I'm not so excited about stripping (furniture) in the future!!