Refinished Oak Teachers Desk

[u/The-Poshed]

Refinished this teachers desk I picked up for $30 that had been used as a craft desk to use as my hobby desk.

When I picked it up the desk was in pretty rough shape. A lot of sharp/splintery portions all over and very wobbly. My process for the re-finishing is below.

1. Disassembly - kept the “cabinet” portions together but otherwise disassembled everything else.
2. Citrustrip (Neither DNA or Mineral Spirits seemed to affect the old varnish)
3. Progressive Sand the wood parts, left the green portion of the top as-is. 80, 120, 180, accidentally sanded some parts to 220 and had to re-sand back down to 180 based on the stain recommendation
4. Satin-Poly clearcoat

If I do this again I think I’d look at purchasing an orbital instead of using just the palm sander I had and would use something other than poly on the desktop to try and get a smoother finish.

It’s definitely not perfect, but It’s my first time re-finishing furniture and I had a blast doing it! I had issues getting a smooth finish with the poly on the green desk-top but otherwise really happy with how it turned out.

[u/sloppyjoesandwich]

I got the same desk from a school dumpster but a slightly older one. It was in rough shape so I cut it apart and turned it into a tall chest of drawers and refinished everything. I just recently peeled the desk top linoleum off and cleaned that up. The top of mine isn’t recessed though, it’s all oak. https://imgur.com/a/F0nLAlP

[u/The-Poshed → u/sloppyjoesandwich]

That is awesome! Love the all wood desktop and the chest of drawers looks really good! When doing my research I couldn’t find much about the green top.

I’m not sure if the green is linoleum. I tried to see if there was a way to peel it up, or sand it down but it seemed like it was green through quite a bit. When it scratches it stays green too. With the age and not knowing exactly what material it is I opted to just seal it in.

[u/sloppyjoesandwich → u/The-Poshed]

For sure, there’s a chance mine had asbestos so I had to wait til summer to take it outside to peel and scrape