Antique Italian Hand-Carved Desk CeCe Caldwell Carolina Sun Yellow

Greetings from TheSmithGarage, just on the other side of the door is TheSmithHotel . So last Summer, we picked up this really rough desk - veneer falling off - but it had some character that I really liked. Needless to say, I have not had time to work on it. It also had a bow (warped) across the top, so I wasn't really sure what to do with it. See some pictures on my previous post - Italian Desk and Child's Dresser ASCP . So I finished pulling off 2 layers of veneer.

The wood left in here is rough-cut 1x1 slats. They were sandwiched between two layers of veneer, so there is still a layer of veneer under then which holds it all together. Remember I talked about the little bow in the desk. I decided to try an experiment - what did I have to loose - I already completely destroyed this hand made antique Italian desk - probably crafted by some carpenter in the 20s right after the Great War. So in hopes of taking out the bow, I slathered a large amount of old thick latex paint on this wood, then put a new piece of 3/16" veneer over the top, stapled it down, and turned it over on a flat surface. Then I stacked every gallon of paint I had in TheSmithGarage on the center of the desk - like so:

I called it my "Tower of Power" and asked Mrs. Smith and the kiddos to stay away for fear of certain death by falling paint cans. Notice I started priming the wood, not quite sure at the time what color the base was going to be. I let it sit like this for a week. The bow is gone. I can only assume the moisture of the latex paint combined with the weight brought the desk back to a flat surface. You can see in the photo below that the legs still have some warp in them, but the desk firmly sits on all fours. I did find a world map that I will be using on the top.

The next step was to pick a color. Originally I thought about a blue - to match the oceans on the map. But during my drying time - I ordered a can of CeCe Caldwell's Carolina Sun Yellow to paint a Henry Link 6-drawer Bamboo Dresser. I really liked the color, and it matched some of the countries on my map - so I went bold and painted it yellow. Here it is still upside down - easier to paint.

Isn't that a great color? Picture is with the new camera as well - which picks up the vibrant color. I love it and think someone will really enjoy this desk in their writing room. So come back at the end of the weekend to see the top take a journey and be transformed. My first experiment in Mod Podge - should be easy, right? Let me know what you think and if you have any tips for me when it comes to Mod Podge - please, any help you can give me would be appreciated.

Here is the top - wood filler is drying around the edges, after I sand it I will be ready for the map.

Thanks Tammy at Tattered and Timeless for the tips. Believe it or not - this really is my first time using Mod Podge. Here is a shot after a coat under the map , wait for drying, then a coat over the top and dried.

It went down well on the first undercoat. Mrs. Smith had some type of rolling thingy bob that I used to roll out most of the bubbles. After it dried, I cleaned up the edges with a scalpel. At first I thought I messed up, but again Mrs. Smith reminded me that Mod Podge is water based, so I got the edges a little wet and they cleaned up nicely. Thanks Mrs. Smith - what would I do without you? So I put the coat of Mod Podge on top and I kind of freaked out again - it started bubbling. An hour later - it was flat again. Why do these things happen to raise the stress level? Regardless - it looks pretty good right now. I will be putting some Polyurethane on it Sunday and see if we can finish it up some night this week. I will post a final picture when we get it all finished.

Share your thoughts.

Mr. Smith

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