I am in the midst of doing our home office and trying to make it eye appealing AND functional. I don't have a Million Dollars to spend on this project but I am really trying to make it space that I like! My husband is just fine with our UGLY set up that we have now, with an over sized desk.
The chair is is from the dinning room set I still need to refinish.
My mother just bought me a new lap top for my birthday so we will not be needing such a large desk for our large computer. I will be moving the big computer to the guest room.
I have this antique desk that I picked up a while back off of craigslist with the intent of refinishing and selling it.
Well, as usual she too has sat waiting for my paint brush to come and caress her.
She has GREAT details on her.
The only thing is, she is a little beat up.
I am priming her now and what I am afraid of is all the imperfections in her.
The style that I am doing the office is more modern than I would ever do. My style is more rustic, shabby chic, and vintage I would say. My husband on the other hand DOES NOT like it! He is always telling me how it just looks like it's covered in DIRT!
So I am trying to give him a space that HE will like as well.
Modern style has clean lines with NO distressing!
My desk is full of nicks. What should I do??
Can I just say how much more DIFFICULT it is to refinish a piece of furniture with NO distressing! At least if there are imperfections in your furniture when you are antiquing it doesn't really matter.
My book case is going to be white with a navy blue on the inside, so basically white. Something like this.
or this, but with a navy blue pattern
The chair frames are going to be white as well, something like this.
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| (via northwesthospitality.org) |
So I was thinking I would paint the desk the same "old navy" color I did on the side table.
"Before"
"After"
"Before"
Okay my question is...do you think one antique piece in a VERY modern room will look bad???
I want to paint the walls a gray color.
So what should I do with this desk??
distress it like this...
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| (via Centsational Girl) |
Or maybe a pop of yellow...
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| (via Miss Mustard Seed) |
Or a two toned color...
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| (via Miss Mustard Seed) |
White fronts with a navy blue body??
ANY INPUT????? THANK YOU :)
~ Desiree ~
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I lean toward the more rustic and eclectic, too. So it's hard for me to imagine anyone wanting all modern and clean lines! I liked the blue and white desk with the wood top! I think the variety will distract from the nicks and dings on the desk- without it looking 'dirty'. But your new (old) desk is already much more charming than the one you'd been using... So you're on the right track!! Good luck with the project!
ReplyDeleteI am in the same boat as you with my office area. I am a fan of mixing styles so I say if you add that one piece of vintage but keep it one color it will look great in there and I love the desk you have. But I am sure whatever color you go with will look fabulous!
ReplyDeleteIn my experience having a distressed more "shabby" looking piece of furniture next to modern stuff only makes the piece look dirty and old. Sometimes juxtapositions work and I'm sure there is a way to make it work. I was wondering if there was a way to make it look more industrial or something like that. Of course the only other option would be to completely sand down that desk to get all the deep scratches out and put some wood filler on all the little dings, etc. Or to make it easier you couldn't probably use some wood filler on some of the deeper scratches and u can easily try to smooth out the smaller scratches. It really shouldn't take that much work. I've had to do it on a modern piece before. I didn't have to sand down the whole piece just fixed up the dings.
ReplyDeleteOh, I'm so glad I came across your blog! (love it, btw!!)
ReplyDeleteMy style is definitely shabby, junky - but I must be an odd duck, because I also love modern (and lately, vintage modern - stuff I used to hate when I was growing up, lol!) I feel that you can combine the styles & pull it off successfully - paying attention to color would be really important, as Creative Raisins said - you could make both the same color, or same value/shade (best way I could describe it would be if you squinted, the colors kind of blend in...)
But as far as the damaged desk goes - first thing I thought of was: decoupage!! I did a search & found the one I was thinking of - it was Martha, of course (Martha can make anything look good, lol):
http://www.marthastewart.com/264216/the-magic-of-decoupage?czone=crafts%2Fcrafting-tools-center%2Fcrafting-tools-projects
or:
http://tiny.cc/6h7fh
Your husband might not like the idea of botanicals - of course, you could use anything that you'd both enjoy seeing (I love old maps - yeah, getting back to old stuff, haha!)
Also - in a room that has mostly modern furniture, a rustic accent piece that's carved looks gorgeous, IMO, such as something Indonesian. I have one piece of furniture like that, but it's really lost in my teeny, teeny apt. now.
I'm sure you can resolve your different styles - for ideas, I love Houzz.com
Here's another decoupage furniture idea - love this blog, not crazy about this particular example, but it might give you ideas...
http://howaboutorange.blogspot.com/2008/02/how-to-decoupage-fabric-onto-furniture.html