The desk

When I got married over eight years ago my wife came along with a rather large, white desk, complete with a missing front drawer. As the story goes, this desk was once in the Swedish embassy and was taken home by my mother-in-law when it was no longer needed (probably 25 years ago now). She wanted a white desk, so she painted it. The pictures show some of the condition after many years and moves—a significant cup in the top, the aprons twisted over half an inch. I was all ready to build a new desk (even bought the lumber) when one day I was crawling underneath the desk and took a good look and the unpainted wood underneath. My best guess was, and still is, that this white desk was actually made of mahogany. I couldn’t just throw away a mahogany desk, so I have scrapped my desk building plans and shifted focus to rebuilding this desk.