Secretary Desk Refinished

Brezina Refinishing Review - Birmingham, AL

My grandparents bought a beautiful set of maple furniture for my mom and aunt when they were young.  A dresser & mirror, two secretary desks, a lingerie chest and a set of bunk beds.  If there were night stands, I'm not aware of it! 

Anyhow, my mom inherited the bunk beds, dresser and one of the secretary desks when she moved out on her own (or sometime in her young adult life), which means that for most of my life, *I* used them as my bedroom furniture. 

They'd been beat up, scratched, stained, dented, and even had a LOT of stickers put all over them.  But still, they remained sturdy pieces of furniture.  We had the dresser refinished as a wedding present when Ben and I got married 11 years ago, and it now resides in Ayla's room.  As does one of the twin beds, which has since been painted with white laquer paint.

But the secretary desk that I love so dearly has unfortunately sat in our garage taking up space and collecting dust for 11 years until we were ready to spend the money to have it refinished.  We waited and waited and discussed it and stewed over it every time we cleaned out the garage.  Finally, this year, I decided it was time to either fix it up and use it somewhere in the house or let it go. 

Well, I couldn't let it go.

I knew it would look so great in our kitchen and help keep all the mail and papers at bay that seem to collect on the island.  But...I'd only like it *IF* it was painted, not stained.  With all the red wood floors in our kitchen, the wood finish just didn't look quite right.  But imagine it all painted black...now THAT would be sharp!

Originally I was going to try and paint it myself.  That illusion lasted about 10 minutes when I told Ben about my big revelation and he said "you're not doing this yourself."  He was right. This desk has an insane amount of nooks and crannies and I'm not known for my detailed precision when it comes to stuff like this.  Oh, and I've never done any refinishing before so I have zero experience.

So off to the professionals I went.  Brezina Refinishing was recommended to me by a local friend, so I called for an estimate, was not completely shocked by the price, and decided to just go for it. 

Brezina Refinishing (Tony Lee)
4915 5th Ave S
Birmingham, AL 35222
(205) 599-6770
(Be sure to tell Tony that Andrea Steed sent you!)

I asked Tony for a black satin finish with slight distressing.  I was VERY pleased!

Wanna see????

He did just the perfect amount of distressing around the edges so that the original wood peeks through.  Plus, check out that shiny brass hardware all spiffed up!

He finished every piece of it, inside & out, front and back (since the back is open to our playroom downstairs).  It even got three new knobs for the inside drawers (since I was so resourcefully using a paper clip - yikes.

Even the inside shelves have some neat distressing marks that almost make it look like it's *actually* worn down that way.

And the chair looks just as good! Check it out:

Ahh...love it.  Working with Tony at Brezina Refinishing was a joy.  I would absolutely recommend him for any wood refinishing work.  I even got to see some samples of cool furniture he's restored and re-vamped in his workshop and home.  He does fantastic work.  Plus, I caught him during a slow season, so he was able to have my desk delivered to me only a week and a half after I brought it to him.  Unbelievable!

I'm so glad to finally have this desk out of the garage and into the house!  Yay!

Next on the bedroom furniture refinishing list -- turning that other twin headboard and footboard into a bench for the entryway.  Something along these lines...maybe in a color this time though!  I think I'll probably let Brezina Furniture tackle that project too. :)