Children's Rolltop Desk

 Late last summer I stopped at a church rummage sale looking for Christmas Decorations for our space at Paris Flea Market.  I had no intentions of buying anymore furniture since our shed was already pretty full of projects to work on during the winter.  Now some people I know won't go to a sale unless they can hit it early in the morning on the first day.  Not me!  I'm one of those crazy people that make quick turns anytime I see a garage sale sign.  Don't get me wrong, I do plan out my Friday mornings so I can hit the best sales first, but I also love catching sales late in the afternoon of the last day when everyone is ready to shut down.  That was the case with this adorable little desk.
Like I said I wasn't looking for furniture that day, but I spotted this way in the back of the church hall along with a few other pieces.  I was pretty broke that week, so I really didn't expect to be able to afford it, but it never hurts to ask.  When the ladies up front told me it was $5.00 (nope didn't miss any zeros) I knew it was mine.  I think I gave them a few more bucks (like I said, I was pretty broke) for a donation, and loaded it up.  Now it wasn't in the best of shape; the back was missing, it didn't have any of the cubby holes, some of the legs seemed shorter than the others so it kind of rocked, and what knobs it had were hideous. Some things it had going for it, other than how cute it was, is the tambour was in good shape, and someone had already stripped it.  I found out later it was made in the 1930's, which you can tell by the spindle legs.

My husband was a great help on this.  He made a new back for it, ground down two of the legs so that it's level, filled the holes, fixed a drawer so it would slide, and re-glued the top when I was done painting it.  I really struggled with what to do with it.  I would have liked to just refinish the wood but it was too far gone, there were holes in the top that had to be filled and the sides had some water damage.  The cloth on the tambour was starting to tear in places, and I didn't want to redo the whole thing, so I glued a piece of canvas over the existing fabric to reinforce it.  I thought it would be cute in a pale pink or turquoise, but in the end opted for a black and natural finish.  So I threw on a couple of coats of black paint, and lightly distressed it.  This was also the perfect project to use my Miss Mustard Seed hemp oil that our daughter got me for Christmas.  It worked great on the tambour and drawers.  It still needed a little bit of pop so I painted the inside of the drawers and the canvas backing turquoise.  Last I replaced the knobs with some Hobby Lobby clearance ones and voila!   I absolutely love this little desk, what do you think?

Linking Up To:

pjh designs

  linda at coastal charm
savvy southern style
diy by design
beyond the picket fence
miss mustard seed