A Glitter-y Vintage School Desk Makeover
Against all my expectations, my daughter Ayla is a princess-loving, pink-obssessed, necklace-wearing girly girl. She's two, and yet she often demands wardrobe changes several times per day. Honestly, I don't know how this happened; I always kind of thought I end up with a tomboy, but no, her favorite games are 'jewly' (jewelry) and and dressing up her 'babies.'
It's cool, though. I can adapt. And here's proof: this fall I was driving by an antique shop when I spotted an old school desk sitting on the front sidewalk. Since I knew my wife Alicia was planning a 'big-girl bedroom' makeover for Ayla when she turns three, I pulled over immediately and checked it out.
They wanted $45 for it; I offered $30 and they accepted, and pretty soon I was tetris-ing it into the back seat of my Civic, with Ayla sitting next to it in her carseat and asking lots (and lots) of questions.
"Daddy what's that?"
"A desk."
"Why?"
"For your big girl room."
"When?"
"When you get bigger."
"How?"
"By, um... growing bigger."
"Why?"
"Because, um, that's what people do, they grow up."
And so on (you get the idea).
Later, when KRYLON mentioned they had a new amazing and very sparkly Glitterblast line (we did some awesome sponsored projects using their spray paints this summer), I knew it would be a great fit. I know Ayla likes pink, and I know she likes glittery things, so it was kind of a no- brainer.
First, I took the desk apart (carefully, since finding replacement parts would be a pain), and cleaned and sanded it up.
Then I primed all the metal surfaces with a coat of black KRYLON DUAL spray paint I had left over. Later, I realized it would have been better to use a light color (or something like red or pink).
Meanwhile, I sanded the wood parts down, cleaned them, and added a coat of clear polyurethane.
After reading the Glitterblast directions (oops, should've done that first!), I realized I need to have a coat of pink down underneath the glitter coat (the Glitterblast doesn't add color, just colored glitter). So I painted over the black with pink.
Finally, it was time for glitter! I found our you can't really go overboard with this stuff; the more you add, the better it looks (in this case, at least).
Here's the finished project (I photographed it out in the yard because we're not going to show Ayla or put it in her room until the rest of the big girl room makeover is ready):
I think it looks pretty great (although the glittery-ness doesn't photograph that well; it's much glittery-er in person), and I'll update you with shots of it in her room (and her reaction) later this year.
Tagged : Krylon, glitterblast, glitter, spray-paint, desk, kids, Curbly-Original
