The Desk Saga

It all started when Joni asked for her grandmother's writing desk. Eventually it showed up. The desk was dark, almost black. You could tell that the front of it was made of wood with an interesting grain, but the grain was barely visible. Other parts of the desk were finished with in an opaque reddish brown. I figured I'd refinish it and maybe it'd look tolerable.

The desk was stained a dark red color, so to prepare it for refinishing I had to scrape off enough wood to get past the stain. I did this primarily with hand scrapers, small pieces of sheet metal. In the process it became apparent that the desk was made from at least three wood species. It took me about two months to get the desk ready for finishing. I chose to finish the desk with super blonde shellac. Shellac is recommended for refinishing projects because it is completely reversible. It took me six months to get shellac onto the desk in a tolerable fashion. That was far longer than I ever could have imagined. The original desk featured small letter sized cubbies. These are not appropriate for Joni, so I built a replacement set of cubbies but kept the original drawer. I added a knob on the door so that the desk could be opened without a key. And I replaced the bottom of the drawer because the old one was badly warped. When the desk was made, the wood split badly around the lock mortise in the door. This was concealed with thick layers of finish and looked bad once I had removed the finish, so I inlayed a new piece of veneer over the affected region.