 What's up everyone so today I'm going to be finishing this desk of mine now this thing is huge It's almost the size of like a single bed or something like that if you've seen my other videos I've had this desk for a couple years now. I'm not quite sure how many I got this For free at a real estate company that was going out of business They were just getting rid of furniture now if you look at this it's in terrible condition I sort of got it in bad condition and to be honest. I haven't been that nice to it in the meantime So I'm looking to Beautify this thing sort of refinish it so what I'm going to do in this video I'm not quite sure how long it's going to take but I'm going to sand through all this stuff and redo the whole thing Refinish it so the supplies I have now I might need more later, but you know, I'm just using the basics first off I have sandpaper and of course this is assorted different grains, so you know the low numbers are the the coarser stuff that has fewer grains on it and ones with Higher numbers of course the the less coarse one and so the idea is you take the more coarse sandpaper to get the and go over this whole thing first just to get it down to a Get rid of the big pieces or big big parts that are I guess sticking out and then gradually move up to a higher level of sandpaper So I gotta I'm not quite sure if this is even going to be enough I I mean the thing is I don't have a sander for this I was going to use a a sander of a friends, but I didn't have the chance So I'm probably going to be sanding this by hand if I get really lazy I might actually go get that sander, but I have plenty of time today So also I actually had to buy new supplies. So I got another brush So my finish so this is a stain and finish or polyurethane So normally you'll have to put out a stain and then some other kind of polyurethane, but this is two in one I don't know how that I've never actually tried this stuff I haven't finished anything in a long long time like a couple years And I also paper towels just to wipe this this thing is actually sort of dirty So I might need to wash it and I bought some extra steel wool just in case I'll probably Use that to soften it up or something like that. So I'll probably put on a couple coats of this stuff if need be You know, I'm not sure how much of this can I'm gonna work through But that's pretty much all I'm gonna have to work with for the time being so anyway So the first thing I'm gonna do let me actually thinking here. I have a screwdriver. Yeah So the first thing I have to do is unscrew the top of this desk which does come off And I'm probably gonna take it outside and do the work down there. So I'm probably gonna forward through that though So I'm thinking about where exactly to do this work because I don't really have a work bench I don't have a any designated place where I can keep the thing held up So I'm actually gonna do something a little impromptu and probably just put the the desk on What are in effect TV trays or TV tables and see if that works now I don't know how much jiggling it's gonna do when I'm sanding it Hopefully not that much, but I think the the TV of I guess I don't know what you'd call them I guess they're TV trays. I Think they'll be enough if not I have some wood I might make something impromptu out of it But I think this will do the thing the main problem is it looks like it's gonna rain today And I sort of want to have this thing under the covering when I actually do the sanding and everything and obviously when it dries So I gotta be careful about that. So we'll figure something out All right, I'm gonna play around with this I'm gonna sand a little bit and see if it wiggles around too much But it looks like if you really force it to it can wiggle But I think I can get away with it Wet paper towel to it honestly because I just want to clean up some of the grime Before I sand it you might be able to see that it's pretty little nasty But I don't want the paper towel to be too wet, but I think this is enough to pick up most of the stuff I need All right, here we go. Oh, yeah, and of course you want to do this outside because it's gonna generate a whole lot of grain Okay, so I've got about half of it gone over with the 60 grain per inch sandpaper I'll go ahead and say I haven't even I don't think I've finished all of this yet I'm gonna do it once over I'll go ahead and tell you some things that I've learned because I haven't sanded anything since basically a pinewood derby car I mean I have but you know no big project like this. I'll go ahead and say I Understand why sometimes originally I was just going like back and forth to sand, but I sort of realized that the better thing to do is Go circular I find that that's much more helpful. I don't know Maybe it's gonna affect how the grain is gonna look later, but I find that To put a little angular momentum on it like it's a whole lot more done So I mean that's probably an obvious tip, but I've discovered it if you know No one knew it already, so I'm not quite sure how long it's taken to do all this But I've gone over it a couple times I mean you'll see there's still lots of the finish over here I can need to get rid of this parts a little bit more bare, but you know I ideally I want to sand it so that all of these water rings aren't very visible or they sort of blend in but I'll probably have to do this a once over I think I should have gotten a sander, but I've already done it Manually this far so I might as well continue just to say that I've done it I mean again, I have pretty much all day to do this, so I'm gonna continue sanding a Little unhappy with how much progress I'm making or not making it's taken along a lot of effort So I went ahead and bit the bullet and went to the store and got an orbital sander This thing actually has a thing for the all the grains you you know all the dust I guess to I guess a dust trap I guess is how you could call it and so this thing is pretty simple it you know It's an orbital sander and there are little air holes in here that suck out all the dust and stuff You might be able to see them and by default it comes with just this one little felt pad Let me put it on you got to line up the holes and stuff like that So this I guess I think this is 80 grain per inch or something like that, but we'll we'll see how this thing works So go ahead and try this out I Don't know if you can tell but it is ripping through the finish way quicker than doing it by hand I sort of regret not getting this earlier, but you know you got to learn by doing I guess Now the one downside is when I got this thing it only came with one of these I guess felt things with the sandpaper on it So I might have to go buy other ones, but I I think if I get just the Again, this is 80 grain so if I get the finish done, I might be able to do the rest of the sanding by hand now The goal number one is just getting the finish off That's why you need a rough grain and then after that you want to smooth it out before you do your finish And that's why you use the the you know 120 the 220 grain or whatever So I'm gonna keep doing this because it's working pretty well So I'm switching to the hundred grit right now I'm thinking this desk compared to what it looked like before it already looks like I could honestly use it right now And it looked better than it was before obviously I should finish it I mean that's the whole point and it's probably gonna look way better than it is right now But anyway, so now I'm putting on the hundred grit got to do it right with one hand I probably should have brought my stand out here, but that works So now again, the objective is just to clean it up a little bit more just to get it softer and softer It's pretty it's not bad right now I might want to pick up all this dust with maybe a paper towel and then let it dry or something like that like a wet paper towel, but Yeah, so then I'll keep sanding 220 grit so now this is extra soft the whole thing It feels way. I don't know it almost feels weird touching this desk because I'm used to it being so nasty and degraded so it's totally again It's like I could just go ahead and use it now and it'd be like Way much better than it was before because it's never been in a good condition, but so I know I said before I was gonna use this 2-in-1 stain and polyurethane But I sort of decided against this now the thing about Polyurethane is you have to give it a coat Sand it a little and let it dry for like ever or actually no you sand it after you let it dry And you have to put multiple coats on it so that can take up to a couple days now as you can see it's getting a little dark I've been taking some breaks. I've had other chores to do so I decided that I might actually use this spray on lacquer instead So lacquer You can basically just spray it down once and then give it some you know Maybe an hour or so less than an hour to wait and then spray another one and then spray at least three coats I think is safe to say so that's probably what I'm gonna do But before that I need a clean there's of course a bunch of dust here So I'm gonna take some mineral spirits and I'm take a rag and just sort of wash this down I think I have a tack cloth as well I'll probably use that those are cloths for like getting up these particles and stuff like that So I'll go ahead and get that underway So brief change of plans So I actually got busy last night So I ended up taking this thing inside and I'm gonna finish it today Hopefully but when I took it inside after I cleaned it up with some tack wipes or whatever You'll see that there are some areas that are still a little stained I mean you can sort of see stuff here. This is the main one here This is from that AC leaking and there are a couple of stripes here I mean these are really deep So I think I might just re-sand these and try and get them out I didn't see them last night. It was getting dark when I said I was gonna finish things up So I'm probably gonna redo this The rest of the I mean although like water rings I managed to get out pretty consistently There were a bunch over here a bunch over there But yeah, I just gotta get these stains in particular. I want to get out But even if I can't I might just go ahead and finish it So I'm gonna go ahead and keep sanding Okay, so those water stains actually came up really quickly So now I'm just gonna go this thing over with a tack cloth. I will say over in the corner There was a stain that is just not coming out and I think I'm gonna ignore it But the stuff in the middle that was really bad. It's sort of out of the question. I guess now I don't know How I can get out that stuff in the corner, but I'm just gonna ignore it Maybe I'll I don't know I guess finish it up or Just leave that as a learning lesson for later And figure it out later. I'm gonna be content. However, this desk ends out once I get all this nasty Geez all these grains off, but after this again I'm probably gonna go over it with mineral mineral spirits and then do the finish with lacquer So here we got our mineral spirits and I am gonna be rubbing this on with a t-shirt I think this thing actually has a little bit of lint on it from other things that it was in the washer with but I've tried to pick those off. I just don't you don't want anything any kind of particles In this when you clean it up. I mean that's part of the reason you're using mineral spirits But I think I got this thing pretty clean, so I'm gonna go ahead and wipe this over So now I've put the mineral spirits on you can see It's already drying up or it might just be that I didn't apply it quite evenly So I might give it another coat. I mean I'm learning as I go, you know So a lot of this part is stuff is already drying up But I might just leave it as it is and see how it looks just as an experiment, but you know I'm figuring this stuff out So yeah, I think I'll put a little bit more mineral spirits on it. I don't know how evenly it's it has to be I mean, obviously this is really just to clean it up. It's not the actual finish Although it I guess it sort of looks good So anyway, I'll give that a little bit too. I'll put a little bit more on then I'll let it sit and Then I'll put the lacquer on and that'll be the finish So time to do the finish So as I said, I'm gonna use this spray lacquer the reason I decided against using the polyurethane is It takes a whole lot a whole lot more time. I mean the lacquer you just spray it on a couple times with periods to dry in between but polyurethane sometimes you have to let it dry like over the course of days and You know, I'm in a place where it's humid outside at my reign I mean, we've just had like really rainy weather recently and I can't let it do that And I have no other place really to let this thing wait for the polyurethane. So I'm gonna try out this lacquer So it should be pretty simple though again, obviously, you're gonna want to do this in an enclosed area, so and From what I understand you just give it some distance No, it smells like crap Get what kind of coverage you can and if you miss a spot you can come back And do it in one of the coats following just because you don't want it to pull up Any any individual coat? So the surface is not really sticky or tacky anymore. So I think it's about time for a second coat You'll see though that the way I sprayed it. It was very uneven in some sections I think it's just because I'm not used to spraying this kind of aerosol evenly So luckily that's why you do multiple coats in part if you get one of them wrong or you miss some spots You have a couple chances. So I'm gonna keep spraying this and I'll probably have to spray multiple coats If I get it wrong, I'll probably have to spray it a couple more times But usually, you know, you want to have at least three coats probably More if you don't know what you're doing like me. So anyway, so I'm gonna keep going I'm gonna put down the phone for this so it doesn't distract me All right second coat done smells funny, of course But it looks like I got a little sort of pools of lacquer in different places But I think I did much better than the first coat Hopefully none of this is gonna mess anything up. I mean, I don't think I did terribly wrong Especially considering it's really my first time doing this especially on such a big surface I don't think I said before but I am doing the sides as well They seem to be the same as to be made out of some kind of composite wood like some different kind of wood But so these are very much a different color. The finish it originally had though made it look like these two kinds of wood Were the same But anyway, so I've been sanding this stuff and spraying it and all that But I'm gonna give it a little time to dry again and then spray the finish at least the third time maybe a fourth All right Coat number three and it looks like it's just about to rain so it might be pretty much the perfect time so I'm going to Go ahead and get this started So I'm worried about what exactly I'm gonna do if it actually rains because sometime I mean, obviously there's covering over our head But whenever there's a lot of wind rain will be coming in on either side. You might have noticed when I was spraying You know it was actually pretty hard to get the lacquer where you want because it's blowing just a couple inches one way or another so It definitely feels like it's just about the rain So I'll probably I mean it sucks because I have to let this dry for at least a little bit before I move it around I mean again lacquer dries pretty quickly, but I might have it like halfway in my doorway right here I'm not quite sure that's one of the only places I can get it because I don't want it touching too many things So all right anyway, well, I'll tell you how it goes Thankfully it has not rained now and it's looking pretty good. It's finally drying down now I think we've done three coats again. So what I probably want to do now is go over this with a pretty fine grained fine grit Sandpaper maybe 220 or something like that just to get you know, I'll look a bird Just to get some of the the I don't know particles that have fallen on it off You might have also noticed stupidly. I put down the spray can at one period I think that was actually in a part that I recorded and so there are a little part I need to get off there but I should be able to sand that off and then I mean I'm gonna sand the whole thing again and Just really lightly by hand with the 220 or whatever and then do maybe another coat I don't know possibly another. I don't know how however long it feels like I need but it's starting to look pretty good I'm less worried about the rain. I mean a second ago It looked like it was just gonna start pouring down any second, but it's gotten a little better I think I have I think I have the time I need so I'll do the sandpaper now So now I'm just doing the waiting game, I guess Because I think the final time you do a coat and which I think I've done for at this point You want to wait a significant amount of time. I don't know. I might want to wait mate Excuse me wait the rest of the day or something So I'll probably stand around the house. It's actually raining a very small bit, but there's no there's no wind and I mean if wind does come I might have to move this thing inside I might get my roommate to help me or something just because it's You know, I want to be really careful not to hit anything But hopefully I don't think any water is gonna be on it regardless So it's really just a waiting game of whenever this thing is gonna be done And I'll show you the finished project in a second again So we did the the spray lacquer did four coats of it. I might end up doing another one It's not too difficult to do one. It's just sort of a waiting game, but it's now finally starting to rain very lightly it might just That might be it and I might not have to worry about it, but Either way, so I'll update. I'll show you the finished project project or product I suppose at the end of the day I will say in terms of time that I put forth working on this. I guess I started yesterday around 1030 or so and I had to go to the store like three times to pick stuff up so that took More I would say I was working on it till around two or so Like that's including going to the store and then I got distracted had to do some other stuff and left it out Or I eventually brought it inside and I started working on this. Oh, okay It's only it's not even 11 right now. So I started working on this I want to say around 930 That's when I started spraying the lacquer and it dries so fast that you know as soon as it's dry You can put on another another coat more or less. So Yeah, so that's pretty much it it looks pretty good now Hoping hoping hoping it won't mess up or become nasty But either way it's gonna look way better than it was before Even if I I think I did a pretty amateurish job for my first time. I think I made a couple mistakes But yeah, it definitely already looks way better than it did before just because it was such a mess See all those water stains and stuff. So I don't quite know what I'm gonna do with this desk I'll tell you I've moved this desk around again. It's about the size of a I mean you've seen it It's about the size of a single bed. It's enormous and you know, the rest of it is just as big or nearly as big But very bulky I have moved it across country twice from Georgia to Arizona then back to Georgia and In different homes in Arizona and Georgia So it's a pain to move around and I've always thought about selling this and it might be worth selling if I think It looks good enough, but I also sort of just like the desk. It's been very useful I keep a lot of stuff in it and you know, you don't really see desks like it that much anymore But you know, I still might sell it if I think I can get a good amount of money for it Obviously, I've only finished the very top of the desk. Now the rest of the desk looks pretty much fine I might finish it later Just to I guess make it look like the finish that I have on the top Although that's not, you know, a big deal Although the the rest of it does have some minor blemishes, but not enough for me to actually do right now I'll show you actually I'll go and show you right now. There's a part that I'm thinking about adding or changing and that is I sort of want to turn it turn it into a standing desk. So I get down here and show you You probably can't see it, but it's on these little stands Yeah, you probably can't see them if I point to it you might recognize it But I'm thinking about replacing those you can just unscrew those I'm thinking about replacing them with Basically just taller stands so I can so it's not necessarily a standing desk or but it's just like a little higher up I've been thinking about doing that But that's more of a woodwork project. I mean, I guess this is a woodwork project, but that would be More of an issue of me. I guess finding good wood Chopping it up how I want bolting it together. However. I need it and putting screws in it, but I might do that I might finish some other things just because you know, I've started this and I bought all the tools for it In terms of tools, I was buying everything original Because I basically had nothing beforehand just because you know since I've been moving around so much recently It's not like I have a tool box or something But in terms of all the same I actually I bought a bunch of stuff I didn't end up needing obviously I didn't use the polyurethane. I didn't use most of the sandpaper I expected to use it later, but I probably spent like a hundred bucks Between buying the sander and all the sandpaper including that. I didn't need the polyurethane You know the spray lacquer the all this stuff It was all came in at about a hundred bucks But I'll have to say despite the fact that I'm gonna reuse everything I bought Even a hundred bucks to refinish the desk isn't that bad Considering how bad it was before so I'm gonna enjoy it now It's actually really starting to rain now So I'm gonna turn this off. I'm gonna show you the finished project and I'll tell it give you some updates All right, look at this I went ahead and moved it in it's basically done drying Although I still don't want to put anything back on it for a couple more hours Just to make sure that the finish is really finished But it's it's pretty dry relatively smooth Now it looks fantastic compared to what it was before. I don't think I did an A plus job I think there are definitely some things I messed up on. I think I I could have cleaned it a little better There are some parts. Let's see. You may be able to see there's some parts that you know the finish didn't really set perfectly I think that's because there was some grain on it or something. I didn't clean up well enough I might put in a little bit more lacquer on that or I might try and clean it up and then put lacquer on it But I honestly I'm very happy with how it ended up looking regardless So for my first attempt, I think it's a really great job. I'm glad I mean this thing was about in the condition that I sort of felt like throwing it away every day But now either I'm going to sell it or at least get some great use out of it Now of course all of the stuff down here I have not finished and it looks a little different from the top of the desk, which isn't a big deal for me But now I mean since the top looks pretty new and clean I mean some of this stuff down here you can see there some I mean It used to be like that was the okay part and the top of the desk was terrible But now this looks terrible compared to how the top of the desk looks But anyway, so I'm very happy about this I'll probably so show some shots of it with all the stuff on it But yeah, I'm really it was honestly not that much work to do all that I know it was probably more work like recording it, you know making sure I had my camera on me But again, I think the sander was definitely worth it I had someone else recommend me a hand sander works relatively well as well They it gives you most of the stuff as an electric one, but the electric sander work totally fine The only weird thing about it is you have to get the I mean the one I have you have to get these special Circular discs of sandpaper, which is sort of annoying some some sanders You can just like put normal sweat sandpaper on them But also I'll say what I learned from this Getting a sander is nice or having some kind of sanding equipment because do you can do it by hand? But it's just a whole lot more labor-intensive and that would have been like the most time-consuming portion and Also, I had to sort of learn to make sure to get all the fit like when I was spraying the aerosol to get all Organized or not organized, but you know sort of even throughout the whole thing That's I thought it was a little more difficult than I thought it'd be just to get a good finish But even though I you know, I don't know what I again I don't think I'd give myself an A plus for this, but it definitely passes strongly and I got a whole lot from this So I'm gonna wait a couple more hours. It's inside. It's actually finally raining out there, you know, but pretty significantly, but I'm gonna let this wait a couple more hours for it to totally for me Psychologically to feel like it's totally done and then I'll put my stuff on it and show you some shots of that So I've waited actually about a week just to see how this thing's gonna fare over that course of time And it's been working great again. There are a couple little blemishes you can see I think there are some over here just where the finished it and sit exactly perfectly You know here and here and stuff like that, but it's I think it was overwhelmingly a success So I've been using this for about a week now it's been a week since I fixed this right up seven days exactly and I have been a little worried about eating on this I used to eat a lot of stuff on it But I just want to be super careful with it just to you know, keep it clean and stuff But I think the next thing I'm gonna do is these little pullouts here, which are totally messy I mean, they're dirty, but the wood is also, you know, has been highly degraded because I've had water on this and stuff So I'll probably do those next. I don't think I'll do a video just on that But I might record it for background footage or something like that Anyway, so Yeah, I guess that's about it. So hope you enjoyed it I don't know if you learned anything because this is more of a I guess a personal vlog of what I'm doing But you know, hopefully you'll be inspired to fix some stuff on it on your own because honestly the whole process was Pretty easy the whole thing Considering I didn't really have experience doing something like this before so anyway, that's about it and I'll see you guys next time