Brass Snacks - Bite Sized Restoration Stories

Jax - Mid Century Modern Desk with Hairpin Legs

We've always admired the sleek lines of MCM furniture. It can be so pretty, sleek, and functional. It can also just be kinda weird. If you see us painting and making big changes to an MCM piece you can bet that in its previous life it was either mistreated or has some of those weird vibes that just won't do for most people.

The Swan Art on the desk is from Lindsey Letters. She has since banned us from using it to stage anymore photos because of over use.......she wasn't wrong to do so.

Jax fell into the "weird" category, but we saw all the potential he had and were very excited when we got him on Facebook Market Place for a steal of a deal.........until we showed up to pick him up. Long story short Jax is huge....and heavy.

The home he was in was old and not huge. Jax was in the basement. Only way out was up a VERY narrow stair case, out a back kitchen door, into the yard where slightly hungover Kendall (it was a weekend, I was working overtime) had to walk through lingering snow drifts in sandals, around the house to the front driveway and her truck.

Jax orignally was on tiny centered legs and that top may look like wood - but it is laminate.

We knew right away that Jax couldn't keep his itty bitty teeny tiny legs. In short, they make him look like a sumo wrestler with chicken legs. Originally our intentions were to keep Jax all wood, but a surprise laminate top changed that plan. The top was old, a bit dingy looking, and scratched so we moved to plan B - Paint! (Which we also love).

We were able to to keep the drawers wood with their beautiful grain and salvage the vintage hardware that had a cool dip detail. We also replaced his 4 little center legs with 6 new hair pin legs that give him some balance.

You may have noticed we've used hairpin legs on a couple other desks as well. It's a full package look that we think really helps to modernize and revive dated teachers desks.

Legs for days on these guys!

These desks are not only sturdy but stylish. Often by updating the finish on the body of the dresser vintage details like the hardware and wood grain of the drawers pop more! They say a picture is worth a thousand words and we think this before and after speaks for itself!

It almost doesn't even look like it is the same desk!

We absolutely love how Jax turned out. Ok, BYEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE!