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.