How to restore desktop?

[Joe Smith]

I accidentally blew away some files in ${HOME}, including ~/Desktop. Now 
when I log in for a desktop session, Nautilus apparently uses ~ as the 
"desktop" filling my screen with hundreds of icons for all the 
accumulated cruft from my home directory ;-)

I figured that once I restored the Desktop directory, my nice clean 
desktop would re-appear, but no such luck. Nautilus continues to spew 
junk all over the screen.

Gconf doesn't seem to have the answer either:
$ gconftool-2 -R /apps/nautilus
  start-state = []
  /apps/nautilus/desktop:
   home_icon_visible = true
   network_icon_visible = false
   computer_icon_visible = true
   trash_icon_name = (no value set)
   home_icon_name = (no value set)
   trash_icon_visible = true
   volumes_visible = true
   computer_icon_name = (no value set)
  /apps/nautilus/list_view: ...
  /apps/nautilus/icon_view: ...
  /apps/nautilus/sidebar_panels: ...
   /apps/nautilus/sidebar_panels/tree: ...
  /apps/nautilus/preferences:
   ...
   desktop_is_home_dir = false            <---###
   ...

Any ideas how to reverse the damage?

<Joe