Leah’s Woodgrain Desk ~ Step-by-Step Instructions!
This is kinda old news, but remember how we did this little end table for Leah a few weeks ago? Well I almost forgot to post about it, but we did a drop-leaf desk for her as well! Here’s the before pic:
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She loved this mural we painted for her friend Brenda, and wanted the same design on her desk… only with woodgrain! So we started by sanding everything down, and putting a thick coat of poly on the desk. Dana cut us a vinyl (of course she did!), and after the poly had a good 24 hours of dry-time… we slapped that vinyl on! Looks kinda sweet just like that, eh?
We polyed over the vinyl to seal it real good. And after letting that dry for about 4 hours, I took 220 grit sandpaper and sanded very lightly around the vinyl so that the paint would have something to really ‘grip’ onto. I didn’t sand BEFORE putting the vinyl on, because it would have been really hard to pull the vinyl off. And we wanted that glossy beautiful polyed woodgrain effect where the vinyl is.
Then, we started priming over it! (we’re planning to write a post about our new-ish paint gun sooooon!)
After letting the primer dry for 1 hour, we painted with white latex paint. Can you see the raised areas where the vinyl is?
After painting, we immediately started pulling off the vinyl. If you wait to let the paint dry too much, you’ll pull of paint that you don’t really want to! I use a needle to get my corners pulled up. Dana uses a special vinyl for this application. It’s less ‘sticky’ than traditional vinyl that you put on the wall, and acts more as a ‘window cling’ making it easier to pull off!
And finally, we polyed the whole thing with Minwax Polycrylic (the water-based version of polyurethane… which is clear instead of yellowish) since the table is white. Now it’s all kinds of shiny and durable!
Ain’t she purrrrty? I mean look at this killer woodgrain! And the detail is so crisp!
If you decide to give this a whirl for yourself, it’s important that you properly prepare your wood surface and don’t skip any of the following steps!
- Prepare your wood the way you want it (stain)
- Apply OIL-based Minwax Poly (and let it dry for a minimum of 24 hours)
- Slap your vinyl on, being careful to avoid any bubbles
- Apply poly AGAIN over-top the vinyl and the whole surface (this seals down the edges so paint won’t seep under) and let dry for about 4 hours
- Lightly sand the whole surface except where the vinyl is
- Prime (let dry for 1 hour)
- Paint
- Immediately start removing vinyl
- after about 24 hours, lightly sand the edges of your woodgrain design. Sometimes the paint is slightly raised there from the vinyl being pulled away
- Poly (with water-base for white furniture, or oil-base for any other color)
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