How to Redo a Shabby Chic Desk

Lay down drop cloths somewhere spacious with good ventilation. Set your desk on the drop cloths. Remove the drawers. Remove all the hardware, such as knobs or hinges, and set it aside.

Sand the desk down thoroughly, including the doors and drawers you removed. Whether your desk is made of metal, plastic or wood, and whether it's unfinished, painted or varnished, you'll need to give it what painters call a "tooth," a slightly rough surface to which primer and paint can adhere more easily. Use a palm sander or a sanding sponge with a fine grit to go over the entire piece once or twice, or until any shiny finishes have been dulled.

Wipe the desk clean thoroughly with damp rags and an all-purpose cleaning spray. Get in all corners, nooks and crannies. Clean drawers and cabinet doors as well.

Prime the desk and all its parts with a latex primer. Allow them to dry thoroughly for 24 hours.

Paint the desk with a base coat. This undercoat should be the color you want to show through cracks and imperfections of your top coat. Light pastels and gold work well with shabby chic, as does dark brown to mimic dark wood. Give the desk and all its components one coat of the base color and allow them 24 hours to dry.

Rub the corners, edges and legs of the desk with a plain white utility candle. Rub the candle wax firmly on any area you envision would be worn, peeling or have imperfect paint spots if the desk had been sitting there for many years.

Paint over the wax with a coat or two of white satin latex paint. Give the desk another 24 hours to dry.

Take a piece of medium-grit sandpaper and attack the desk with it in all the places where you rubbed the candle. The top coats of white paint will easily wear off where the wax was, leaving the base coat beneath to show through. Continue sanding anywhere you want until the piece looks attractively shabby.

Put new hardware on the desk. The paint job is the shabby part. The hardware can be the chic part. Use stainless steel or patina brass, or add glass knob drawer pulls.