Ahhh the joy of using those two little words.  

“Charge it”.

It can bring instant gratification in so many ways.

I won’t talk about saying “charge it” in the shopping sense because that’s a whole other story.

What I will talk about is the 4 smartphones, 2 tablets, 2 music players, 2 readers and 3 laptops (and to all you thieves out there reading this…they’re all knock-offs, fakes & imitations so nothing worth stealing) that were taking over my house.  

There’s just so many and they all need to be charged. At different times of course but still..there were cords all over the house and it was driving me nuts!

So when I scored this awesome little desk for $8.00 I knew exactly what I wanted to do with it.

Now before I show you the before picture I will tell you that this desk was a mess.

And I will go ahead and put this out there…but please for the love of all things wood, whether real or fake…stop putting stickers on furniture.  Just don’t do it.

And please learn the difference between real wood and fake wood.  When I called the lady about this desk, she assured me that it was real wood.  WRONG!

Oh well. For $8 bucks I probably shouldn’t have expected it to be real. Whatever.

So here’s the before picture:

I told you it was a mess. There were sticker marks everywhere! And that bubbling on the top oh dear heavens.

It was uuuuugleeee!

I had to rethink my plans.

The first thing I did was clean it up and finish removing the clear tape that was still stuck to the side.  What a mess.

I debated whether or not to sand since I was using chalk paint.

I know you don’t have to sand when using chalk paint but whatever. This desk needed all the help it could get.  

I ended up lightly going over it with my orbital sander. Remember this is fake wood so a lot of sanding would have killed it. 

The next thing that had to go were the things that made the keyboard holder (I’m guessing here) slide in and out.

I removed those and filled in the holes with some wood filler and sanded it smooth once it was dry.

The wood that held the keyboard was actually in decent shape so to cover up the bubbles and those awful stickers on the top of the desk I decided to place the good wood on top of the bubbled up wood.

I think I used liquid nails. I can’t really remember but whatever. I’m sure any kind of wood glue would work.

I forgot to take a picture of the good wood after I placed it but I can assure you it fit perfect.

I did take one after the first coat of chalk paint.

See.  Told you it fit perfect.

I went ahead and did three light coats of chalk paint all over the desk.

I mixed my chalk paint a little thicker than I normally do since this desk needed a serious makeover.

She was beginning to look a lot better.

After the paint had dried, I wanted to distress her. I only wanted a little distressing and since she was fake wood, I worried about more sanding. She probably couldn’t take much more.  I decided to distress her with stain. I had some Minwax dark stain left over from the butcher block island that I did for my mother-in-law so I just went with that.

Just lightly dab some on and then quickly rub it off.

You can still use a soft sanding block if you dabbed too much.

I won’t tell you how I know this so just trust me on this one.

She’s starting too look cute huh?

Well I still wasn’t happy.

I especially wasn’t happy with the front where you can see where the two wood boards are sitting on top of each other.

Nor was I was happy with the top piece of wood that still showed some bubbling and warping.

I decided to mod podge some scrapbook paper on those two areas.

I went with a cute wood looking paper.

Don’t ask me why I decided on that paper just go with it…mmm k.

Now have the desk sit there for over a week while you wait on your hubs to drill you some holes in the back.

Yes I said a week.

That’s 7 straight days because it’s just so hard to go to shop, get your drill, find your bit for drilling holes, walk back to house, walk downstairs to mama’s shop, plug in the drill and drill some holes.

*Note to self…buy yourself a drill with bits for holes*

Now like I said…don’t ask me why I went with that paper.

I didn’t like it.

I didn’t like it AT ALL.

Once we got the desk upstairs and I decided where I wanted to put it, I had to figure out what I wanted to put on it.

I think my final choice was perfect.

Chalkboard contact paper!

Say what!!!!

Chalkboard. Contact. Paper.

I added a power strip, a couple of baskets to hold cases and ear buds and now everything has a place.

I’m happy with the way it turned out.

I’m happy that there are no more cords in every room in the house.

I’m happy that the chalkboard contact paper fits perfectly with the chalkboard on the wall.

I’m happy that everyone has a place to tuck away anything that needs to be charged.

And I’m happy that I knocked one more thing off my super long “to do” list.

Now scuse me…my laptop is about to die.  Must…

CHARGE IT!

Linking up here:

Homestories AtoZ

Savvy Southern Style

Embracing Change

thirty handmade days

Accidentally Wonderful