| Project by Ben | posted 56 days ago | 487 views | 1 time favorited | 11 comments |  |
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After 6 moves in the last 10 years, the hand-me-down desk from my in-laws was starting to loo a bit shabby. The white painted desk (shown in the last picture above) was warped in three different directions, so it was time to build a new desk. I took a trip up to the lumber yard and was all ready to get started on my new desk when I crawled under the old desk routing some electrical wires on day. As I looked up at the unpainted portion of the table, I discovered that it was not just a simple white desk, but was made out of some nice wood (mahogany?). This desk had previously resided in the Swedish Embassy, and had been purchased by my mother-in-law abour 40 years ago. I scrapped the new desk idea and shifted my focus to rebuilding the old desk that we had.
By rebuilding, I really mean that the new desk only marginally resembles the old one. I started with removing all of the paint. I shortened the desk by about 10 inches and added a few curves to the top. The old apron was just about useless, so I rebuilt that as well. To build the curves, I built up a laminate with poplar, and put a strip of the original apron on the outside layer. The legs are original, just now permanently attached. I finished the desk with about 7 coats of Waterlox.
For more details on the construction, check out my blog on this desk.
11 comments so far
Brad
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87 posts in 667 days
posted 56 days ago
Man great rebuild! The finish looks awesome!
Brad
-- Great Coffee= 8oz strong coffee, 1tbsp brown sugar, 1tbsp 1/2&1/2, 1 heaping teaspoon mahoganny
littlecope
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583 posts in 395 days
posted 56 days ago
Wow! The the top of this caught my eye right away. What a shine!! Beautiful finish…Nice save, Ben!!
-- Mike in Manchester, NH---Unpleasant tasks are simply worthy challenges to improve skills.
stefang
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1646 posts in 228 days
posted 56 days ago
You did a beautiful job on this table Ben and saved some quality furniture and wood at the same time. The new design is perfect. I’ll bet your Mother-in-law is really pleased too.
-- Mike, American in Norway
griff
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926 posts in 655 days
posted 56 days ago
Ben, you really did a number on this one. the rebuild and finish looks great.
-- Mike, Bruce Mississippi = Jack of many trades master of none
Beginningwoodworker
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4132 posts in 566 days
posted 56 days ago
Nice job on the rebuild.
-- CJIII Future cabinetmaker
McLeanVA
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147 posts in 328 days
posted 56 days ago
A fellow iMac user. Nice decision. :)
The desk turned out awesome. Thank you for the topless view. It really shows some great detail.
Question for you: What do you think of the Waterlox? I’m working on an end table for my living room and want to decrease the chances of water rings from coffee mugs and such. How is the finish holding up?
Great job on this project.
-- Measure, cut, curse, repeat.
Kindlingmaker
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1470 posts in 420 days
posted 56 days ago
Fantastic refurb and the results, WOW!
-- Never board, always knotty, lots of growth rings
CharlieM1958
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7618 posts in 1112 days
posted 56 days ago
What a beautiful rebuild! Thank goodness you didn’t throw away that beautiful lumber.
-- Charlie M. "Woodworking - patience = firewood"
matt garcia
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716 posts in 565 days
posted 54 days ago
Great job!! I love the luster on the finish! So that is Waterlox? Beautiful!!
-- Matt, Houston Texas
RexMcKinnon
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676 posts in 89 days
posted 54 days ago
Beautiful desk. 6 moves in 10 years wow.
-- If all you have is a hammer, everything looks like a nail!
Ben
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18 posts in 707 days
posted 51 days ago
A co-worker mentioned that this desk may be made of Elm. I have no prior experience with that wood, but what I read and pictures I see seem to check—so that is my current resolution on the mystery wood.
As for the Waterlox, the jury is still out. The finish looks real nice at the macro level, but up close I wish I had done a little better job. I really isn’t 100% dry yet (probably 99.5%), so I haven’t stressed it much. Only time will tell how will the finish holds up.