Garage Sale Find

A few weeks ago while hosting our own garage sale, I caught another one down the road and saw this desk for sale. The owner was asking $20 and reassured me of the craftsmanship I'd find in the wood and blah, blah blah.  Truthfully I was looking for something I could "white wash" and then put into my "office" that i'll probably never use,  but hey it was $20, and I was excited for a new project.  So without thinking twice I took it home.

Andy was excited to start on it (I could see the excitement in his eyes, but not really), and we quickly did a search on Pinterest to see how other people "white washed" their furniture. Once we came to an educated consensus on how it appears to be done we ended purchased these supplies:

(1) 14 oz of White Paint w/ Primer 
(1) 8 oz can of Miniwax Clear Finishing Wax
(1) Three Sheet of 120 Grade Sanding Paper
(1) Tube of Wood Filler - We used Elmers

We Already Had:
(1) Paint Brush
(1) Cup to put paint in
Water

Before starting any major wood project we like to dab wood filler in to help make any rough spots, a bit more level.  For this desk, while it had exceptional quality it did need a little bit of repair in a few spots.

Once our Wood Filler dried we we're ready to go we sanded down the entire desk, making sure to remove the previous glue gun spills and marker that although hardly there once existed on the desk.

We then created the "white wash" or one part paint, three part water mixture. Depending on the look you are trying to attain you can make this thinner or thicker by adding more of either water or paint, we then let this dry. (Note: If you make your mixture really watery make sure to check the edges for pooling because once it's dry, it's just a blob and doesn't look very pretty)

Next, Andy got to join in and sand the edges, and make it look "weathered."  When I had the chance to examine it after the fact, I wasn't that thrilled NOT because Andy didn't do a great job, he did, but because I didn't like the color underneath that was coming through, so I did a second coat over it.

Once dry, we put a light coat of the Finishing Wax all over the desk, the directions ask that you put the coat on and then wait 10-15 minutes to then come back and polish. We did that, and to be honest couldn't tell a huge difference.

When it came to put the knobs in, I had originally purchased these gorgeous glass knobs with gold detail, however because of how thick the original holes were that would have taken a lot of wood filler, we decided to spray paint the previous ones gold, and use them. I used Rustolem Spray Paint in Gold (which I use for a lot of things.)

So here is the finished product. What do you think?