After replacing our sofa table with an ottoman in our living room, my husband expressed his desire to keep the sofa table because it belonged to his grandmother. I was fine with this because if you've read my previous posts, you know I am a lover and keeper of good furniture. I didn't know exactly what to do with this sofa table, so once we got our ottoman, I drug it into our office where it sat in the corner and occasionally collected "things." Now that we're having a child, we needed to clean out our office to make room for baby. I was not sure what to do with this piece of furniture. My husband expressed that we could get rid of it, and I kept my promise to keep it. And then I had an idea, convert it into a desk!
The sofa table belonged to his grandma and then passed to his parents and my husband remembers having this in his house as a kid, and eventually in his own house as an adult. It was a fine piece of furniture, the top had been re-done once by his dad and was in need of another refinish. The single drawer in the front had a broken handle, but that could be easily replaced. I asked my dad if he could put new legs on my table and I told him I would eventually bring the table to him. After researching how tall this desk should be, I realized I could buy replacement legs at Lowes or Home Depot for the table. So there was no need for him to fabricate new legs for me.
My trip to the big box stores didn't go well. They don't carry legs long enough for my desk. I needed 30" dining table legs and they only had 25" legs, which I later learned are end table height legs. This discovery came after I had removed the old legs and sanded down the old finish. So my project was on hold for about a week until I found some legs that would work with my new table. An internet search turned up Osborne Wood Products where I was able to purchase four new maple Cabriole table legs. They weren't exactly like the old Queen Anne legs that were on the table, but they were suitable for this project because the size matched the existing legs.
After removing all of the existing hardware and legs, I sanded everything down, omitting the use of a chemical stripper because I'm pregnant. The side finish actually came off quite easily, but the top, which had been previously refinished was a lot more work. I used a brass brush to get rid of most of the old varnish and stain in the routered edges on the table. I filled in the holes from the previous hardware with Plastic Wood filler.
I prepped the wood with Minwax Wood Conditioner before applying the stain. I used Minwax Stain in Ebony, the same intimidating color I used on the dresser project. Another coat of stain and a long overnight drying and onto the varnish. I used a Minwax Polyurethane varnish in clear satin.
Besides having two files and a mosquito land on my varnish - don't worry, I got them off before the coat dried - the new desk turned out great and it now sits in our kitchen.
Here is the table before.
A close up of the top which had been refinished once before.
Here it is with its new legs. It's no longer a table, but a desk!
The finished product. I nabbed the chair and cushion from Ikea.
