But then I realized that I have a list longer than I can name of other more expensive things we need for the house – new refrigerator, new dishwasher, expanded island, new wood flooring, new tile flooring, new fireplace surround tile – so… I already  had a desk that was similar in shape to yet another Ikea desk on Pinterest that someone had spray painted gold, and it was very pretty, so that sparked an idea in me – if I paint my current desk, it will still look really cool, and it will cost virtually no money.  I was in love.

Here is my desk Before:

(pay no attention to my work table which collapsed, and I somehow hadn’t yet picked up behind the desk)

By the way, I have discovered something – resin paper.  Resin paper is the pinkish large paper that you see above under the desk.  You can use it for anything – to protect floors while painting, and I have been using it extensively lately to spray paint things in my garage, while protecting the concrete floor.

Here is a picture of me in process:

This draped plastic that you see above is my favorite thing for spray painting in general – both with canned spray paint as well as with our paint sprayer (regular paint).  It’s awesome.  I need tons of it.  Here is a shot of the Tape & Drape (I bought mine at Home Depot / Lowes, but it’s available on Amazon as well).

And here it is in the light of day – almost done – just some SafeCoat Acryllic additional coats to get it nice and glossy, and to ensure that it stays this pretty almost forever.  I used Krylon copper spray paint (with the shiny top) on the legs / frame and keyboard tray, Krylon white gloss spray paint, and I used Rustoleum white gloss all purpose spray paint on the glass top of the table.

I made a huge mistake doing the bottom layers in Krylon white gloss, and then, because I needed some sanding blocks (to smooth out any lumps, didn’t really erase a couple drips as it was supposed to) at Lowes, and I was sick of stopping at Michaels, I convinced myself that getting another brand of white gloss spray paint at Lowes (they didn’t carry the Krylon I needed) would be fine for some minor touch-ups / the final top coat on the desk.  That should have worked.  But the final top coat with Rustoleum (switched brands, big mistake) crackled – something I had heard about but never seen before.  So I have sanded out most of the crackles with some sandpaper, but it isn’t perfect.  It’s barely noticeable, but I wish I had just stuck to my first love with no crackling – Krylon White Gloss spray paint.

I have a couple thin coats of SafeCoat Acryllic clear poly the top, keyboard, and side legs, but I need to coat the thing, and make sure I’m happy with the texture – I love a glossy texture.  Especially on something like a desk, which is very tactile.

I’m very happy with it!  It doesn’t even look like the same desk!  I will update with another post once we push this little beast back up the stairs.  Thanks to my sweet husband for his help with moving this desk around!

Sources:

• Krylon copper spray paint (Michaels)
• Krylon white gloss spray paint (Michaels)
• SafeCoat Acrylacq, green clear poly (I haven’t found it anywhere locally, but I bought mine online.  I bought 5 gallons, and I just always have it for a rainy / poly needed day)

I have had a side table I ordered from Wayfair months and months ago, that looked originally like this:

Well, here is picture that Wayfair had up on their site:

Well… it doesn’t quit look that way (i.e. doesn’t look this way at all)!  The glass top has this blue tint, & it looks horrible.

But I still loved the table – I think the shape is gorgeous.  I knew that something had to be done about the top and bottom glass pieces.  My original idea was – use gold leaf gilding and gild the top to ‘match’ the gold of the base.  That was a great idea – except that in the meantime, I had decided to shift from a White and Gold theme in my office to a White and Copper theme.  So I translated this theme into the copper – spray painted the base copper, and copper leaf gilded the top:

You can see, I think, the beautiful difference in the copper and the native gold below – the top is already sprayed copper.  The copper is just cooler to me, and looks almost like a burnished, old gold:

Next I used copper leaf to gild the top (I was so excited about this, but it didn’t turn out as I had envisioned).  The copper leaf is to the left, and it turned out way too brassy / orange for my taste.  I listed above Gilded Planet as a great place for gilding supplies, however, I ordered this copper leaf on Amazon (Mona Lisa brand), so it may have made a difference in a more pleasing color if I had ordered it from Gilded Planet, as I have previously.  Beware – just as with gold, copper spray paint and gilding has many different hues, and I loved the gold / burnished / cool gold look of the spray paint, but not of this orangie gilding, so I just spray painted with the same spray paint I used on the base right over the gilding (you can see the spray paint overlay to the right, not orangie at all):

I used Krylon metallic spray paint with the shiny, big metallic head, as shown here:

And finally, here is the finished product – I love it:

I hated the really rough metal texture of this piece to begin with, plus I needed to seal the paint so that it would look great for years to come, so I put on two coats (over the entire surface, base and top and bottom) of Safecoat Acrylacq, an amazing, eco-friendly, green polyacryllic that Young House Love turned me onto.  I bought a gigantic container (5 gallons I think), and still have about half a container left, after doing our kitchen cabinets, this, and several other projects.  I love this stuff, and now it has a shiny, smooth texture.  I’m a big texture person, and now it is smooth as silk!

Sources:

• Wayfair end table
• Krylon copper spray paint (too expensive on Amazon, but a better picture of exactly what I used) – I picked mine up at Michael’s
• Safecoat Acrylacq Gloss Finish, eco friendly clear poly