Writing Desk in Emperor'sSilk, Black Wax, and Walnut

I picked up this table from a thrift store a while back. I did a quick update a couple of years ago with supplies I had on hand to make it a little more functional and used it in my laundry room to store some painting supplies. But it was a little too big for the space, so I decided to finally re-purpose it back into a writing desk.

Before

Here's what it looked like when I first picked it up. The base was painted in black, the drawer was purple with two knobs, and the top was unfinished. It doesn't show in this photo, but the top was hinged so it opened. So you could either open the drawer or the top. I'm not sure what the purpose of that was.

My initial quick fix was to re-center the knob and paint the entire base in black. The top was stained in mahogany.

For it's new look, I removed the old hinges and then applied the top to the base with wood glue and a couple of nails for extra support. There was still a crack where the two pieces of the top met, so I filled that with wood filler. After the wood filler was dry, I sanded the entire top with my orbital sander.

After

I painted the base in Emperor's Silk (Annie Sloan Chalk Paint) and re-stained the top in a walnut finish. I applied black wax (one of the new wax products by Annie Sloan) to darken the red tone.

The top no longer opens up, but it functions better with just the drawer.

I love how the walnut stain pairs with the red paint.

Overall I think the repair on the top is seamless.