You all know I’m all about being frugal, but sometimes there are things that I know would be frugal but that seem overwhelming because I’ve never done them before. Redoing furniture is one of those things. I know plenty of people who have done it, but I had never tried.

But then someone we knew was getting rid of a desk, and I really needed a new desk. I decided to take the free desk and see if I could figure out how to make it work. If you’re wondering how to repaint a desk, here’s documentation of my experience as a total beginner!

How to Repaint a Desk: A Beginner’s Experience

The first step was, of course, to get the desk to my house! We put it in the garage to begin with.

Here is what it looked like when I received it. It looked like someone had attempted to repaint it already but hadn’t finished. Some of the hardware was missing or broken. With my very limited knowledge, I knew that the whole process would be three big steps: sanding / preparing to paint, painting, and replacing the hardware.

I was worried about the words that had been somewhat engraved into the top of the desk. I wasn’t sure if they would still show through when I painted.

Now that I knew what I was dealing with, I had some decisions to make. I needed to pick out a new color for the desk, and I needed to decide what kind of hardware I was going to replace it with. The current hardware needed two holes on each piece. I thought it might be hard to find hardware that would fit in those same holes, so I decided to drill new holes and find hardware that only needed one hole per piece.

I went to Lowe’s to get what I thought I needed, but once I got there, the woman who was working at the paint counter had some different tips. She showed me exactly what to get and also mixed my paint for me.

She said I would need to sand the desk twice: once with a coarser grain (the 80 piece above) and once with a finer grain (the 220 above). I also got the paint, wood epoxy to fill in the old holes, a new paintbrush, and the new hardware. I spent about $75 total on the materials, but it would have been cheaper if I hadn’t needed a new paintbrush! If you’re doing a similar project, you might already have some of these items on hand, making it even cheaper.

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