Workshop Office Tables Makeover

Over 20 years ago my mom gave me the coolest Xmas present ever: Two office tables and two filing cabinets – officially giving me my very own L-shaped office space to go opposite her desks in our home office. Back then I was an avid PC gamer, writing my first novel and learning website design code. Honestly nothing really feels like settling in to “home” for me like sitting down at my desktop. My office was just always my safe place, a real extension of me and who I am.

So it probably won’t surprise you guys to hear that I actually initially designed our guest bedroom to be my home office.

I did this by adding extra outlets throughout the room and by putting in several outlets at counter top height in the closet in expectation of a printer, scanner, modem etc.

(PS. The counter height extra outlets I put in that room didn’t go to waste. Our modem ended up not even being able to go in there anyway. The closet now houses a dresser that supports our guest bedroom TV and Lodi’s PlayStation 4 gaming station so the outlets behind it all came in very handy.)

Way back in the day, for a little while, it was a lovely home office for me.

Life happens though and not all things go according to plan once the drawing board collides with reality. After my divorce in late 2017 I was in dire straights financially and there was no reason to heat the majority of this house which included my office.

So, I set up one of my office tables in my living room (by the wood stove) and happily PC gamed my way into a better mindset all through that long winter alone here.

Spring of that year I started working on a main floor workshop in the biggest extra bedroom and a guest bedroom out of my old office. I also moved on to completely redesign and repaint my entryway and give my kitchen a makeover too.

I really LIKED having my office in the middle of the house back then… close to the heat and close to the refrigerator lol.

And that all worked out great for awhile.

My office found a sweet home in the entryway perched on an old kitchen table and it was plenty of space for me during those years.

And the office tables and filing cabinets mom bought me years ago made great workshop benches and tool storage!

Which just about brings us up to date.

With my working from home a lot more I grew out of my little office space in our entryway.

So I just moved my office into our workshop, settling my desktop and gaming laptop right back where they belonged from the start. On the old office tables my mom gifted me so long ago.

There’s a lot of work ahead though to complete this space.

I finally got organized with a new shelf unit and am now moving on to the tables.

They’ve seen years of my abuse and desperately need a new coat of paint.

Years ago I had given them two coats of high gloss black Rustoleum so I picked up another can of it to do the same.

Rustoleum is an oil based paint that I’ve really grown to love. Many times in two coats it does just as good a job as two coats of acrylic primer, two coats of acrylic paint followed by two coats of clear coat.

That’s so much time saved!

A lot of people hate oil based paints though.

They stink (badly), they take forever to dry (a couple of days), they will not come off of your skin without acetone or something equally toxic and it will never come off of your clothing or really anything else it gets on.

Its also WORK to apply it because it “paints” on like glue.

However, when it dries, it dries SOLID.

It provides a smooth beyond-tough finish that I can sometimes even get with only one coat!

So, at least for me, I LOVE IT.

As you can see in the before pictures these tables really did take a beating from me. They’re covered in scratches and glues and paints and whatever project they were under over the last few years.

A razor blade took the worst of it off and a pliers got all the staples out from that one time I had a serious argument with my hand held stapler…

Over a couple of days I put two coats of high gloss black Rustoleum on them and MY GOSH WHAT A DIFFERENCE.

It is so difficult to take pictures of them because they’re so shiny but even with all of the reflections you can see how the the Rustoleum filled in all of the nicks, cuts, gauges and imperfections, resulting in a smooth-as-glass finish.

Pretty impressive!

Now that they’re dry I can’t wait to move my desktop back in here and finish this room!

(Oh yeah and for those of you that may have noticed I have a NEW office chair! Lodi purchased it for me for Xmas and my gosh is it a game changer. I’ll be putting out a post all about the chair as well as some other purchases for this space that I’m really excited about.)