Upcycle Project – Desk to Sign

I found a lovely vintage desk on Facebook Market Place and just needed to have it. I am sure you know that feeling. It was a good deal and just the right size to replace the desk that I had made several years ago. I made the desk at the time because one of my kids wanted a desk and my sister had found these hairpin legs at a flea market that she knew I wanted. I think she ended up giving them to me for my birthday. The hairpin legs were a little short for desk height, but I designed the desk accordingly. The desk was well-loved and well-used for several years. Now that the bedroom is only used about twice a year as a guest bedroom for them, I decided to give the room a slight refresh.

Even though this desk served our purposes well and I love selling items I no longer need. I figured that the materials in my desk made from flea market find would best be utilized by taking apart the desk and making something new from it. I actually ended up making three things for our home from this one desk. First, I made the Flea Market sign from the top part of the desk. That was a pretty easy project, but it still had a lot of impact. The two other things I made from it were actually a pair of trays for our washer and dryer. I’ll post about that soon.

There are many tutorials on how to make your sign appear aged when it really isn’t. I have a few household items that I used to get the effect of the sign above. One of my favorite things to use is old candle wax. Since the top of the desk was already stained, I just needed to rub the candle wax on the wood in various areas where I would want the wood to peak through the paint. I rub it on in a pretty thick coat. Once the wax is in place, I just do my base coat of chalk paint. For this sign, I did two coats of white chalk paint. I have a silhouette from several years back. It still makes great stencils so I used it to make the stencils for my sign. Then I just painted the words and a border around the sign. Once the sign completely dries, I just use a paint scraper across the surface. It picks up the wax and leaves the distressed finish behind. I love that it looks like it has been around and weathered for ages.