Repainting a desk

Big Chris

Big Chris

Big Chris

Soldato
Joined
5 Apr 2004
Posts
5,482
Location
Bloxham
My Parents have asked me to decorate one of their spare rooms. There's a wooden fixed desk built into one corner of the room which is currently painted white, but very tatty. My younger Bro used to have the room and has scratched stuff into it, written all over it and gouged a few big holes in it too.

What's the best way to bring it back to life? Sand it all back, fill the holes with some sort of filler then just paint as normal?
 
You could do that, or you could put a new surface on, or you could replace it with a new desk top/kitchen surface type thing altogather. Depends how much money you want to spend and how much work you want to make for yourself.
 
I'm useless at DIY so replacing it isn't really an option as it's built into the wall, and I can't see them paying for a new one as it's only an occasional use room, so I guess I'm going down the refurb route.
 
I'm useless at DIY to but I did paint my own built in MDF desk last year.

Sanded it down, filled in the marks/holes, sanded it down again, sealed it with MDF sealent, sand and reapply sealent, paint x2, finally apply clear varnish to prevent the paint getting damaged.

Wasn't too difficult and the result was pretty good.
 
Did you sand it by hand? It's quite big this thing and there's two banks of extra draws to the side of it so it's probably about 10ft wide in total, on two different levels - all fixed together and to the wall.
 
Yer I did mine by hand but it's purely a slab of MDF screwed to the wall without drawers or anything else, plus it wasn't painted before so the first sanding was to reduce the stains of spilt drinks/skin oils off the surface rather than remove old paint.

Still sanding it by hand shouldn't be too hard, unless the existing paints falling off I would have thought you'd only need to make it smooth enough for painting
 
Yeah ttat's the plan, doesn't have to be a pro job (thankfully!) just need to get it looking more acceptable than it currently is.
 
I'd fill the holes, sand it back with a block until it's smooth again, then prime and paint it.
 
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