How I Learned to Stain From An Ugly Office Credenza

I found an old ugly office credenza at Goodwill for $9.99.  I brought it home and it was ugly, I mean really ugly and worn out with sun spots and water damage, but still it had good bones.  It was sturdy and practical so I used it for several months as a work table in my garage.  Pulling out dresser drawers to sand and paint, the ugly office credenza was just what I need to put them on.  The height was perfect.  You can imagine after several months, it looked even worse, covered in paint, scratches and more.

Until, I had a gentleman come to look at another piece of furniture I had in my garage, but “I really need something for my home office with file drawers.  Do you have anything like that?”

“I do have this old thing,” I said, pointing out the ugly office credenza in the back of the corner.  I kicked at the base like a used car salesman kicks at the tire of a lemon car.  The gentleman pushed on the ugly office credenza and tinkered around for a minute, opening each drawer and I could tell he was wondering how such a junky piece of furniture could ever become what he needed in his home office.

Finally, he said "I think this could work, I like it."

“I could paint it what ever color you prefer,” I suggested, but he cut me off.

“I’m colorblind, so I’m really not into picking out any specific color.  Can you stain it back to its natural wood?”

I am a people pleasure through and through.  If you asked me to make pecan pie out of egg noodles, I’d try it just to please you.  It’s just my nature.

So, I said yes, knowing all to well I’ve never stained a piece of furniture in my life, let alone an old worn-out painted over piece of junk like this credenza.

Still, a promise is a promise and I told him it would be done by the end of the day because I had nothing else to do but take care of my kids, work on about 10 other projects and clean my house.

I started by sanding off the paint from about a dozen different projects.  It’s funny how spray paint flies.  I was sanding off paint even on the bottom drawers.  I cursed the fact that this piece of furniture was so dirty from my own demise.  Regardless, I worked away and finally remove the gloss to find the wood (so sorry I don't have a before picture, but I never thought this piece of furniture would be blog worthy).

Bri-wax, elbow grease and self-determination and I had the most beautiful piece of wood furniture I’ve ever seen.  

I even spray painted the brassy chipped up sun-faded fixtures black.

I can’t believe this is what was hiding underneath decades of wear.

I really shocked myself.

I called the gentleman back to tell him his credenza was ready and it was gorgeous.  I was ready to start bragging, to go on and on about its transformation.  

"You can come pick it up anytime," I said with the same enthusiasm my 4 year-old son had demonstrated earlier in the day when he finished building a Lego tower.  I was somewhere between disbelief and gloating.

“Sorry, I found another one and already purchased it.”

(Yeah, that whole part was a bummer and a bad ending to this story.)

Still, I thanked him for suggesting it be restored because I am love with staining furniture.

Here it goes on craigslist and let’s hope I get some interest in it, although I'm very fond of it and could look at it and sigh with disbelief for another few days.