Haus of Kendi: The Desk

I've been looking forward to writing this post for over a year. Last summer Mandi stumbled across an antique church desk during one of her trips to Goodwill. It took a little convincing, but she finally talked me into buying it for $40. The plan was to refinish it and put it in my home office. This was a great project to keep me busy while I was unemployed last summer/fall. I started by stripping the old finish and sanding it smooth. I decided to use a combo stain/polyurethane to save a few steps. I wasn't terribly excited about the original handles (simple wood handles that were kind of bulky), so I planned to find new antique handles. This proved to me more difficult than I expected. We checked all of the local antique stores and shows for something that fit the style of the desk, but we didn't have any luck. I was hoping to find something that would fit in the original holes, but that really wasn't a reality. I finally found some brass handles from the same dealer who had the ottoman legs at the Scott Antique Market. They weren't the same size as the original handles, so I had to figure out how to fill the old holes. Luckily the guy also had something called QuikWood that seemed like it would be pretty easy to use. This is where the story takes a familiar turn. Since the desk weighs about a ton (okay, maybe a bit of an exaggeration), we weren't able to move it from the basement to the second floor on our own. We were finally able to move it when Mandi's mom and Neal stopped on their way home from Florida. Neal and I got the desk up to the second floor and this is where it got ugly. Because of the way the door to my office was configured we couldn't get the desk through the door without either taking off the door frame or taking the top off the desk. I wasn't too thrilled about dismantling a rental house, so we tried taking the top off. Sadly, antique desks aren't built to be taken apart and we couldn't get the top off without damaging the desk. So back down the stairs we went. The desk sat in the front room of the house until we moved to Florida. Now that the desk has a home I felt it was time to finish the drawers. Plus I couldn't unpack the stuff that goes into it until I finished the drawers. I still need to find a marker to match the wood filler to the new finish, but otherwise the desk is finally finished.