100 Miles in my Brain: D.I.Y. Kitchen Desk

I am a bit crazy when it comes to multi-tasking. And because of this craziness I usually end up with a pile of half finished projects in the kitchen/dinning room area because I like to work of other things while dinner is cooking. Our son started climbing and is getting more and more brave everyday. Last week he started doing this...

The corner he is dangling from used to be where I kept all my projects. The laptop was by the stove, our house was built in the 50's and little logic was used when considering the placements of electrical outlets. They were safe until he realized that he could push the chairs around to get into high places. The chairs are now tethered to the table legs with paracord, just incase my kid is the next Hulk.

We started to scour goodwill, Salvation Army, and craigslist. We found this ugly thing on Craigslist for $40...

(Notice the super inventive green hair tie lock)

I did light sanding over the whole thing and made sure to clean every nook and cranny well to make sure my paint stick but wouldn't bubble.

I really like a flat black color on furnature with a brushed aluminum. The blue was left over from another project so I decided to use it on the sides of the drawers.

After cleaning I started with my flat black. I bought the black and metallic aluminum at Walmart for $3.58 each. The clear and blue came from Home Depot at around $5.99 a can. As I've just started to experiment with spray painting furnature, I have just been trying whatever colors that I like over specific brands. Both Krylon and Rust-Oleum worked great for what I wanted to do with them. My only complaint would be about the clear coat, I did several coats on the metal hardware, I have found some nicks despite letting them dry in between coats, and letting sit for a couple hours to fully dry.

I applied 2 costs of both the black and blue on the desk, using only the clear coat in areas that were going to get wore more, of which I also did two coats.

Notice we pulled out the shelf from inside. My laptop would not fit, so it was pulled out, and later I hand painted it black too.