Older than I thought

Turns out I had the history of the desk wrong.  I was speaking with my mother last night, and it was my other grandfather who worked for the post office, my father's father was a book keeper (in my defence both passed when I was pretty young :)), and the desk was purchased used for my father.

 I know now that it was definitely purchased used as my father was born in 1939, and on the bottom side of the middle drawer I found the manufacturer's information.  It was made by the Office Specialty Manufacturing company, and is a Office Specialty System desk.  I started searching on-line and the first bit of information I found was an advertisement in the Montreal Gazette from 1913.  The second article I found was a history of the Office Specialty Manufacturing company.  Usually when I find these they're historical stubs, in this case it was a historical background by the company itself.

Amazingly the company still exists.  They're now known as Inscape and are still in the business of selling office furniture.  So if you want some office furniture you know will last they may be your guys.

I contacted their information mailbox with a few questions, and received a very nice and quick response:

Good Morning Kevin:

Thank you for your wonderful email regarding your Office Specialty desk.  Office Specialty has been in business since 1888. Imagine, 124 years now.  We manufactured wood products up to 1954.  We then started manufacturing all steel products.  All of our wood desks were made of quarter-cut oak, walnut or mahogany.  110 was built approx 1920.  Do be so careful in restoring and keeping these numbers for value and antique reasons.  So your unit is around 100 years old.  I receive emails from all over the world and it is so exciting to know where they all end up.  I would appreciate knowing where you are from Kevin.  Would also very much appreciate a picture of your desk for my files.

110 is the serial number of my desk.  Turns out the desk is about thirty years older than I'd thought!

The Desk Itself

As I indicated in yesterday's post, the desk most likely came from the Canadian Post Office at some point in the past through my grandfather, Garnet Black.  It's a standard enough looking office desk, other than the trim which is a very striking quartersawn white oak.  Or at least it should be.

If you look closely you can still see some of the peach latex

Like many of us, this poor piece has led a rough life.  Undoubtedly abused in it's first incarnation as a working desk in an office it suffered further indignity, likely in the 1970's, when as the story goes, my aunt painted this beautifully figured desk...in peach latex.  Let me restate that one more time for emphasis, a quartersawn white oak desk was painted in latex.  In the colour peach.  I may have been born in the 70's but I sure don't understand what folks were thinking back then.

When my grandfather passed, and my grandmother moved into a retirement community, the desk along with a lot of other furniture was passed down to the family.  For years my mother used the peach monstrosity as a sewing table.

About fifteen years ago, my father decided to refinish the desk.  He worked hard at it, getting that peach paint off with stripper and following that up with the belt sander (I guess that's where I learned the belt sander fixes all mantra from before).  Once stripped he finished it with a gallon or two of uncut home center polyurethane.  Painstakingly applied by brush, or at least that seems to be the story the embedded bristles tell me.

The desk itself

Obviously I'm being hard on my dad's refinishing efforts, and it's not intended as a dig.  He did the best he could with the skills and knowledge he had at the time.  Had I tackled the job a few years ago, I'd likely have attacked it the same way. 

Beyond the two failed refinishing jobs done to it in the past, the desk is also showing it's age.  Many of the glue joints have failed, the patina on the pulls is worn away, the mortise locks still work but the keys have long since disappeared and the veneer on the pullouts is peeling away.

This is going to be the biggest refinishing job I've done to date, and I hope I can do it justice.  For reasons personal and aesthetic, this desk needs a chance to live again.

Dad's Desk

A little over a year ago, shortly after my father passed away, my mother went through a redecoration phase in her home.  One of the things she wanted was a proper computer desk and not the old desk she'd been using.  As she lives in another country it wouldn't be feasible for me to build her a proper desk, and against my advice she decided to purchase a desk shaped object from the local office supply store.  While in little under a year that $300 pile of junk has since disintegrated and she's gone on to buy another  one, it left the old desk without a home.

Ordinarily this wouldn't be an issue.  Throw it away, or donate it to Goodwill or what have you, case closed.  That was her initial intent before I pointed out to her, that a it was my dad's desk and b, it was quartersawn white oak.

Technically I suppose neither are 100% accurate.  The desk's solid visible lumber is quartersawn and the sides and top are veneered, with the non-visible pieces of several lesser wood species, mostly birch.  The desk also wasn't exactly my dad's, though it did come from his family.  My grandfather worked for the post office and it was his office desk that somehow came into his possession.  I'm guessing he either bought it when they redid the offices or took it when he retired.

The desk sat in my mom's basement until November of this past year, when I had to return to Ottawa for the funeral of my closest friend.  As I would be driving up to carry some of Adrian's personal effects back to his parents it was a convenient time for me rent a trailer for the return drive and take the desk back home with me.  Which is what I did, so let the saga of Dad's desk begin.