The Journey Of A Secretary Makeover Diary Entry 1

No I have no plans to go into Mr. Whimsy's office and glam up his secretary. I do however have some big plans for this lady. I picked her up a couple of months back off of Craig's List. The price was More than right and I had a vision. Sadly this vision had to wait for weather and time. Weather being the major factor as it just did not want to get warm enough or dry enough for the makeover to begin. More time for me to contemplate. This can be a dangerous thing for me. My plan was to paint this beauty who according to her previous owners had in 1994 gone into the salon for a major overhaul. This former makeover had included white washed paint and hand painted pink and green flowers. Yikes! My initial thoughts were more of a black and red crackled finish. I began planning. I asked my two favorite authorities on faux finishing Barb over at Grits and Glamour and my friend Lisa who owns a faux finishing and design business to give me the run down on crackle finishing. I am glad I asked. It did not take me long to decide I WOULD NOT be crackle finishing the secretary. Time kept droning on and at one point I thought of finishing it white and placing it in Little Miss Whimsy's bedroom. No no no!!! I had picked it out for my family room wall and there it would go. Finally after months of waiting today was the big day. Woke up to sunshine!! Ran down to Lowes and picked up a can of black satin paint. Then got side tracked by three kids and a husband. At 3Pm I started my project. I worked for about 4 hours. This four hours included some chats with the neighbors of course. Hey it's Sunday in the South. Things like this can't be avoided!

This is her placed in the family room. All black painted and fresh but of course far from finished.


The first thing I had to do to prep the gal was remove all the hardware. This was one tedious task. She had hardware galore! The handy dandy zip lock full of her jewelry.

I had to remove all the doors, drawers, desk mechanisms and this inset. Little Miss Whimsy was happy to discover that the two center columns of this actually slide out and are secret compartments.

We actually found some items that we assume belonged to the former owners. That "C" drive is titled "Emerald Isle Pictures". There are some foreign coins, a library card and some gold links that were removed from some jewelry among other things. I am happy that my navigation system still has their address in its memory so I can pop these in an envelope and send them back. I would be sad to lose photos.

After I removed all the hardware and taped off the glass I sanded the entire piece down with a sanding block. Then I wiped it all down with a damp micro fiber cloth to get any dirt and dust off. The painting began. Notice I have the doors sitting on little round dowels? When you paint any type of cabinet door it is best to elevate it off of the paper or drop cloth you are using. This way as it dries the paper or thing it is sitting on will not stick to it. This will eliminate the potential to have the newly painted surface ruined.

Some more painting. I love the serpentine drawers on this piece and love how they look painted black.

Here is a final shot of the work done today. She is drying nicely. Tomorrow I plan to clean all her hardware and hopefully get it placed back on her. If it goes smoothly I will put the doors and drawers back on as well. The makeover will not stop there. I have more plans for her. I won't spoil them by telling y'all what they are just yet. Y'all will have to visit me on a couple more Met Mondays to see how she is coming along and for the final reveal. I am thrilled with the results so far. I couldn't wait to share! For more wonderful transformations be sure to visit Susan at Between Naps on the Porch http://betweennapsontheporch.blogspot.com/.