Easy Desk Solutions for Kids

I have a daughter who loved to draw and color when she was little. To organize her supplies and coloring books, we restored an old school desk found at junk yard.

Students school desks are extremely easy to find. Many school districts will auction off old student and teachers desks on a fairly regular basis, as they upgrade to more modern equipment. The classified ads in your local paper are the best resources for finding out about these auctions. These days, surplus student desks tend to be made of molded plastic. For an older style desk from the 1950s and 1960s, your best bet is attending school auctions in more rural communities.

Buying directly from the school district is the best and often least expensive way to find one of these student desks or a wooden teachers desk. The benefit of buying directly is that you have a wider selection to choose from, in terms of both size and condition. To give you an idea of cost, I paid $5 for the student desk shown in the photograph, and purchased a solid oak teachers desk for $15.

If you've missed out on a school auction, salvage or junk dealers usually will purchase these items by the truckload for resale. Our desk was found at a local junk yard, where it had been stored outside for the past 5 years.

What to look for when buying a desk

Some desks are harder than others to restore and replacement pieces are often costly.

Look for a student desk unit that is intact. Is everything working properly? Does it have the brackets that hold the lids open? Is the veneer seat in good condition or is it splitting from age? Has the lid been carved on? If the unit is all in one piece without any sort of permanent damage, then you've found a desk that will be easy to refinish.

How to refinish your student desk

1. The first step is to give the desk a good scrubbing. I use Softscrub on the entire desk, except for the seat. Softscrub is a gentle, liquid abrasive that is excellent at removing most stains. Once the desk is clean, you can begin restoring it.

2. For the metal components of the desk, use an assortment of steel wool to remove both rust and the rough parts of the existing paint. Start with O grade and work down to 0000 grade. It is not necessary to remove all the paint; just enough so that the metal surface is smooth to the touch. Once the paint has been removed, you can spray paint the surface. To prevent over spraying, tape off all the nonmetal parts of your desk and leave just the metal portions exposed.

If the desk was heavily rusted, you should apply a coat of rust inhibitor such as Rust-oleum, before spraying.

I recommend enamel spray paint for the desk. While it does comes in a wide variety of colors, you might have a custom color in mind. Your local paint & hardware store can decant any custom mix of enamel paint into spray cans for you.

3. Spray the desk in a low traffic area, such as your garage. You may have to experiment with painting a piece of scrap metal until you get the hang of spraying. When spray painting, it's important to remember to apply multiple thin coats instead of covering everything on the first go around.

4. Once the paint has completely dried (about 3 days), you can begin refinishing the seat. If the seat has existing varnish on it that needs to be removed, apply a varnish stripper following the directions on the back on the can. Be sure to cover up the metal components of the desk first!

5. Once the varnish has been removed, gently sand the surface of the seat to remove any blemishes and stains. Always work with the grain, and avoid sanding down too much of the wood itself. Start with a medium grit paper and work down to an extra fine grit. The seat should feel smooth to the touch when you have finished.

6. Remove the dust from the surface of the seat using a slightly damp rag. Allow the seat to dry thoroughly before applying a clear varnish.

7. Most of these old desk seats were either pine or oak, and look nice without any sort of stain. We opted to apply a clear varnish to protect the surface from art supplies; you might decided to apply tung oil instead for a more natural look.

8. To apply the decal, we found a Victorian print from a clip art book, and made a color scan using a laser jet printer. The decal was glued to the back using a spray fixative to hold in place, and then covered with a layer of clear varnish.

Few furniture pieces can beat an old school desk when it comes to efficiency. School desks are compact and portable, comfortable to use and designed to store supplies without a lot of wasted space. Children will love the kid friendly design; parents will appreciate having a place to store kid's art materials in one easy-to-find location.