Uplifting Facelifts...

My poor desk has had a rough go of it lately.  I bought it the over 8 years ago when I first became a nurse and started bringing in an actual LIVING.... It was a stand in for the Roll Top Secretary that I REALLY wanted, but could never reconcile buying.

I tried to dress her up...I really did.  I removed the lame wood knobs and replaced them with cute floral ceramic ones.  I used some terrible floral contact paper from the dollar store to cover the MDF dividers.  But try as I might, all she ever looked like was a Secretary Wanna-be at best.


And lately, she has become a catch all.


A dust and miscellaneous junk catch all at that. 

So, today, after a bit of planning I gutted the poor girl and in the process I found DUST BUNNIES hiding behind those compartments.

YUK.  (and did you notice the handle hanging by a thread.... pitiful I tell you.)

I removed the compartment insert and put it in the burn pile. I found that those compartments were just hiding spots for junk.  And the less hiding spots I have to lose important papers the BETTER.

Then I was left with a flat desk surface.....Perfect.

I had the fabric all picked out for what I had in mind.

A vintage pillowcase with almost exact measurements was used to cover the linen of the interior of the rolltop.

I used a permanent gluestick (THREE of them actually) to stick the fabric to the linen covering.

I just snipped the excess fabric of the pillow case after pressing the fabric firmly against the glued linen.

Then I used some of this amazing upholstry fabric.  I got it for $2.00/yard at Walmart a few years ago and have never used any of the TWO yards that I have.

I used the white sideto cover the writing surface of the desk and the blue-ish side to cover an old cushion for the chair.

I tacked some 1inch wide ribbon to any raw edges of the desk covering after securing the fabric with tack nails.

Then I had to figure something out to do for storage, since I didn't have any compartments any more.

I filled some of my Mason jars and with my staples, paper clips, etc, but they didn't hold the bigger things like the stapler and the hole punch.

I had to figure out something to be a container for those things as well.

 

I ended up covering a cardboard box with some pretty, light weight linen using ANOTHER glue stick.

Boy do I LOVE those glue sticks.

 

And then I wrapped some of the ribbon around it.

I covered 2 clip boards with some scrapbook paper and double stick tape.

  

and put one on each side of the desk.

I realized, when all was said and done, that it's not a half bad desk after all.

It just needed a little TLC in order to become what I wanted it to be.

A calm, pretty place where I can sit...... to do some not-so-fun tasks.

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What sort of facelifts are occupying your thoughts these days?