DIY: The Painting of a Vintage French Desk

I feel so "HGTV" right now. I purchased a vintage "French country" style desk for my new office a few weeks ago and finally got around to painting it white.

I've always loved the white & gold combination for home offices and when I finally got a space big enough to call my own, I knew EXACTLY how I wanted to decorate it.

When my grandma passed, I received a beautiful, ornate gold couch and chair set that I have always loved. I knew I wanted to incorporate it into my office, but the current furniture I had was just not workin' for me.

So, my designer friend happened to stumble across this beauty in an antique store and knew it'd be the perfect addition to my upgrade. I snatched it up!

Like I said, I've always wanted a gold & white (& pink) color scheme in my office, so we decided to paint the desk white to really get it to pop. It's original color was a distressed baby blue, which was pretty, but didn't really make sense in the space.

Mind you, this is my very first DIY project. I know it doesn't sound too intense - "painting a wood desk"- but if you know me, you know that my creativity comes in the form of words and not in the form of handy-work. I'm glad to say that this project did go better than planned, and I loved the way the desk turned out.

I headed over to Lowe's with J and gathered supplies. Thank goodness J has some sort of DIY knowledge because without him, I would have been roaming the aisles lost and confused.

Here's my supplies list:

Valspar paint sample: White Cotton (I think. I threw away the tag that said the actual color. Who knew there were so many different shades of white?)
painter's tape
1 1/2 in. paint brush
sand paper strips
blue gloves to protect your hands from the paint

Before painting, I sanded the entire desk (minus the top slab of wood) to get as much current paint off as possible.

After sanding, I took a wet cloth and wiped off the dust particles to make it a smooth surface to apply the paint.

Before painting, I placed painter's tape along the border / bottom of the desk top to prevent my newbie hand from accidentally painting the raw wood. I wanted to keep that feature the natural wood color.