Furniture Freebies

I spent all weekend cleaning our house when I wasn't working... and I was a little upset when I came home on Monday and walked into this:

After I got passed the books on the floor, the desk and SCB hiding behind it came more into focus.

Apparently his work is switching building offices and this wooded desk was bound for the trash heap. In case you didn't know, SCB had to leave his HUGE wooden desk with drawers and everything back in Utah because A) it wasn't going to fit in our home, and B) his parents weren't parting with it.

Since then he has talked non-stop about wanting a real desk. When we resurrected my old one from my mom's place, SCB was fine with it because it was free... but when faced with a free wooden desk option, all sense of reasoning was abandoned and telling him "no" was out of the question. In his defense he did ask me about bringing his dream desk home... and I told him that he should measure it, and then we'd measure the space when we got home and them drive up there in my mom's truck if it were a go...

He took that to mean he should strap it to his beater and drive it down the freeway home THAT very same day...

I walked into a house that was completely a mess (after cleaning it all weekend too) with my friend on the way over to join us for dinner....

Then he realized it was too big for the allotted space...

So I did what I could do to help him since I knew it was going to break his heart to get rid of it or "modify" it to make it smaller. I found a way to make it work and moved our smaller bookshelf under our bar area in the kitchen (since its also housing my electric keyboard at the moment-- We are loan/giving it to SCB's parents when they come out to visit. Essentially they will store it and use it as much as they want to until we ask for it back).

So now we have a HUGE desk in our little living room... but it kind of works and it makes him happy. SCB says I can paint it black after he sands it down if I want to and add little knobs to the drawers. What do you think, Should I paint it?