The Simms and Young Desk

This is the Simms and Young desk. My brother's first real job was with Simms and Young, a company at the heart of Belfast business. During his time there, cutting his teeth as an Elf in Safety, office furniture came and went. Just before the Managing Director's desk went my brother stepped in to save a small piece of Belfast's industrial heritage from landfill, and it served my mother well as a potting table, right up until my parents moved to their fabulous apartment a few months ago.

Since then the poor thing has languished in garages. The kind C stored it for us while we moved, and it has spent the past week in our garage, undergoing four evenings of what Prince Charming has been too happily describing as his affair with Annie Sloan! There were hours of sanding on the first day. Those of you expert in the current art of chalk painting will know that this was not necessary, but years of business had left the desk top patchy and uneven.

The string and the paintbrush are ours, but the ink stain in one of the drawers must have a story all its own from some office leak. I suppose business leaks now refer to quite different things!

I like the stamp inside that tells us that this desk is an Abbess 563,

and PC likes the quality of the woodwork. I like the lock. The key has gone the way of stamps and quality!

And so to Annie Sloan. Two nights of brushing two coats of her on, and one night of applying a nice, soft wax.

Followed by one night of sanding her off, and finishing with a final coat of wax. And here she is, a delight to sit at and no small motivation to get the bookshelves sorted! A happy conclusion to Prince Charming's affair...