VANITY UP-CYCLE
As an amateur up-cycler/carpenter/creative person I'm going to share my experience in fixing up my antique vanity to give it some va-va-voom! I made plenty of mistakes but I learned a lot, especially from reading and researching other peoples blogs. So even though I am no pro, I hope this post will inspire someone to take on the challenge! If I, a lazy, procrastinating, rather-buy-it-pre-made kinda gal can do it then so can you!
What you will need:
- Sand paper of varying grit (60 & 220)
- Tack cloth
- Primer
- Paint
- Paint brushes and rollers and trays
- Polycrylic protective finish
- Painters tape
- PATIENCE!!!
I can't believe I didn't take a before picture! I had already disassembled it during the move from my apartment to my boyfriend's house so I forgot to assemble it again to snap a picture. I assumed I had taken photos of my vanity over the years but I only really took photos of myself through the mirror. Whoops! So this is the best I got. See all the distressing around the drawers, ugh! Can't handle it!
I started by sanding everything down with my RYOBI sander I got at Home Depot. To get all that gunky paint and grime off of it, I used a 60-grit sandpaper.
It took so long to get all that paint off that I decided to go a little easier on the drawers. I just needed a good surface for the primer to stick to.
After wiping everything down with multiple tack cloths to get rid of paint dust, I painted on Zinsser's Bulls Eye 123 Primer with a roller. I used a small foam brush and a detail brush to get into nooks and crannies first before painted a couple of coats of primer.
This big guy got two coats of primer...
...while the drawers and the mirror got one coat
Then came the white paint! Everything got 3-4 coats of white paint and between coats each piece was sanded with 220 grit sandpaper and wiped cleaned with tack cloth.
I got the color "Bit of Sugar" from Behr. It's pretty much just plain white but it has some subtle purple undertones that I really liked - I wanted it to be a crisp bright white. I love Shabby Chic themes but I completely abhor distressing furniture. I can stand naturally old distressed furniture and clothes that have been loved and used, but when things are purposefully scuffed and ripped it drives me insane! I want things to be pristine. Hello OCD...
Under all the coats of green paint I could see that there had been amazing gold trim all over the vanity that I wanted back! So I went to Michaels and got this fantastic (and expensive) gold paint. While I was at it I also took the knobs off of my bed frame and painted them gold so that it would look like a vintage metal frame.
These pictures are just after one coat of gold paint and oooh baby it looks good! In the end I painted three coats of gold paint so it would be poppin'.
The last step of painting I did was spraying a couple coats of Polycrylic protective finish over everything (which was really hard to do on the mirror).
Then came the waiting.
I left the vanity in my garage for a week or two so that the paint could cure enough to assemble it all again.
Putting it all together was the best feeling of this whole process! It came out better than I thought it would because I'm a total amateur to up cycling furniture. My boy helped me install the hardware and take it upstairs to our bedroom before we fixed the mirror on top.
Drum roll please...
Ta Da!! Oh my goodness, I feel like a Hollywood starlet when I sit here in the mornings and do my makeup! (I have already said that in a previous post and it will not be the last time haha) Here's a bunch of detail shots because I am so proud.
I am so in love! Later I added some string lights I got on Etsy from DIYLED. I have always wanted the classic Hollywood bulb lights around my mirror but those are so expensive and wouldn't go with the shape of my mirror. Instead I bought these inexpensive and super bright LED strings lights that adhere around the mirror.
When they are turned off they aren't the prettiest lights though. I'm thinking about getting some white duct tape to blend the wires into the frame. But since they're so small it's not something I have a problem with yet.
And the knobs on my bed look so effing cuuute! All of the girls I follow on Instagram have this exact bed frame (it's from IKEA) so I wanted to make it a little different. It looks like an antique Edwardian brass bed frame now! Or at least I tried to make it look like one.
So that's it! The whole process took me about a month including all the drying time in between. Like I said, a project like this requires PATIENCE. But I'm so glad I finally got around to fixing my baby up. I'm literally going to keep it forever and pass it on to my first born child!
I have another dresser that desperately needs some TLC so maybe soon you'll see one of these posts tackling this project again!
You stay classy San Diego, and thanks for stopping by
- Miss Handy Dandy Summer