I have been missing crochet. Last week I spent several days painting my work desk. My work time is mainly limited to my child’s naptimes and bedtimes, but I’ve needed to give up that work time for painting in order to go ahead and get the refurbish done.

There were a few reasons I decided to paint my desk, or rather, just the desktop. When my husband and I were renovating our house several years ago, we designated one of the bedrooms as a computer room/craft studio and put a wide desk in the closet that I could use as a work table. We got a large board and my dad helped us sand the top and side, cut the board to fit the closet, and install it. We realized after it had been screwed in that we’d accidentlly put the board in upside down. At the time, I was planning on using the desk mainly for sewing and laying out garment pieces, so while it was annoying, we decided not to remove it, especially since putting it in was kind of difficult.

before

Over the past almost two years, I’ve been using this table as my main work desk. We’ve added shelves above it and made it a nice little space, but the area wasn’t great for picture taking (frustrating when wanting to get process shots and pics for patterns, Instagram, blog, etc.) I finally got a true color light for the space and that helped a TON, but the surface of the desk itself was too shiny for my taste. I wanted a more matte background for my photos.

My husband and I discussed options – removing and flipping the desktop to it’s intended direction would be extra difficult with the new shelves now installed above, so we can to the conclusion of painting the top.

It took a bit of time to get started, but I managed to get it done over two naptimes and a couple hours for two nights. I decided to use chalkpaint as I liked the matte characteristics, and do a concrete-inspired look using a light blue and light grey. We used Valspar Chalky paints and their corresponding Clear Sealing Wax, just because it was what was available. I haven’t used others to compare, but I feel like it worked well enough and I’m satisfied with how the desktop has turned out.

Everything has been moved back into its place, and my time will be mostly dedicated to editing a pattern. So, I won’t be picking up my hook, but it will still be nice to get back in that headspace.