Bathroom vanity redo

It's been a busy couple of weeks.  The custom TV cabinet we were working on is finished and has been delivered.  Now we are working on the same customers two matching end tables.  I decided I will wait to post all the finished pics together.  Bill has been building a few new pieces to feature on our Pennies Primitives Facebook page and they came out AWESOME!  I hope my paint job will do them justice.  So in addition to painting the new pieces I have been working on our bathroom vanity because the bathroom remodel starts in FIVE DAYS.  I'm so excited!!  

I thought I would show you the before and during transition of the vanity but warning, I'm not posting the finished product until its in the bathroom!   

  

This is a section of the vanity. Its not a great pic since its taken under the bright lights in my shop but you get the idea of the color.   

I know, its really pretty and all you wood lovers probably think I'm nuts to paint it but it doesn't fit my vision of how I want the bathroom to look.   






I normally use Milk paint which adheres to just about anything but I couldn't find the right shade of gray and was to nervous to mix my own custom color.  I could picture myself running out half way through and ending up with a multi colored vanity.  So instead I went with flat latex paint.  I was a little concerned how a latex paint would adhere to such a shiny finish and was envisioning hours of tedious sanding.  Yuck.  Then I found this product in Lowes and figured I would try it.  It worked really well and was way easier than sanding!    

Brush it on

Let it sit for a few minutes

Give it a scrub and the finish comes right off.  

                Looks good to me!  Just a note,  its a little smelly so if you use it make sure you have proper ventilation. 

At this point I wasn't sure what I wanted my end game to be.  Did I want them plain gray?  Distressed?  Glazed? Since I was up in the air I decided I would paint them as if I was going to distress them.  That means they needed a base color.  In case your unfamiliar with distressing, the base color is the color that shows when you sand through. 



I decided on black as my base.  


 

 

Bye-bye cherry cabinets!






After the base coat dried I wiped on a coat of sealer. The sealer gives you a little added protection from distressing through the black, all the way down to the original wood.  Of course if you sand too hard you will still get a little of the original wood peeking through but the majority of the distress will be black.  


Now we're ready for the gray.  

I like it!!  Now that I've got the gray on I'm thinking they will look better glazed black instead of distressed. 

Here's a drawer after I added the glaze.  Sorry, I got so anxious to see how they would look I forgot to take pics of the process.  Its very easy.  Brush the glaze on and wipe it off.  

You can see how the glaze just settles in the groves.  It gives it a nice antique look.  

Not a good pic but here's a sneak peak of what I've finished so far. 

You'll have to wait for the Bathroom redo to see the rest! 

Thanks for stopping by and see you soon!  

Donna 

Taz's new bed

If you have been following my blog you might have heard me mention that I don't like clutter.  Well it's true, I don't.  In fact I try to hide anything that isn't pretty. 


               Meet Taz.

No,  I'm not trying to hide Taz but what I am trying to hide is this.  

    
               Taz's bed. 









Having this sitting around my otherwise pretty house REALLY bugs me.  But I love Taz and I know how much he loves his bed so we had to compromise.  




I thought if we had something that fit around his bed it might look a little neater.  Nothing elaborate, just something simple.  Like maybe a crate or something.  I asked Bill what he thought and he said he would come up with something. 


Here's his something!

It slides right over his bed.

I gave it a little distressed look and painted the name tag with chalkboard paint.  




Now Taz is a very happy cat and so is his Mama!  

                                                   Meow


           Thanks for stopping by!

                     Donna

   

Planning out the Bathroom redo

Next month we are planning on starting our next big home improvement project, our bathroom.  Like our bedroom remodel, we only have one week to complete as much as possible.  I have my fingers crossed that we can get at least half of it finished but if your a DIY'er you know that once you start ripping things apart your pretty much guaranteed to run into all kinds of trouble.  Unfortunately when it comes to us, if there's plumbing involved it usually means double trouble which includes lots of swearing, slamming stuff around, etc...  So that being said I'm keeping my expectations low.    

We had originally planned this bathroom remodel about 10+ years ago.  At that time we bought a double vanity with the sink top and two mirrors.  Well, for some reason (and I can't remember why) we got side tracked and everything has sat buried in a corner of the garage ever since.  After all this time neither of us could remember what we had bought so we dug out the boxes and opened them up (Yes, we had never even opened them)   Turns out we bought a very nice dark cherry vanity with matching mirrors and a plain white double sink top.  (sorry, its still in the garage so I can't post pics yet) It's a very nice vanity and when we bought it Im sure it would have looked great in our house but not anymore.  It's so NOT the look Im going for so the plan is to paint it.  Once I get started I will post lots of pics.   

So now I'm in the planning stages.  This is the picture that I'm calling my "bathroom inspiration photo".

I love the white plank walls and the way the gray vanity pops against them.   So that's a definite, our bathroom will have white plank walls and a gray vanity.  

I went to the paint store and got a ton of gray color chips but I'm having a hard time deciding on just the right shade of gray.  (yeah, I know there's a joke in there somewhere!)   

I am going to buy a few sample colors and try them on some boards to help me decide on the color.  I'm also not sure if I want to distress it or not so I will be doing some sample boards of that also.




I love the look of these beautiful distressed white wood floors.

I have always wanted white distressed floors like these but I've never had a room to put them in.  I'm thinking they might work really well in the bathroom.  So right now that's my floor choice.  There is one problem, well, temporary problem.  The floors are the last step in this remodel which means if we don't finish the WHOLE bathroom during that week my floors will have to wait.   ):    So I had to come up with a temporary backup plan that wont cost a lot of $$.  

We have a few boxes of this vinyl wood plank flooring leftover from our kitchen redo.  

I will be able to live with it but boy, that white distressed floor is my dream floor!  

So now there's a matter of lighting.  The mirrors are going to be white like my inspiration photo but I don't want a light on each side of both mirrors.  Two mirrors, four lights, I would have no wall space.  So the only solution is to put a light over each mirror which I can live with.  I've narrowed it down to these two choices.  

Choice one--

It looks cool in this room on the plank wall, doesn't it?  (Mine would definitely have to be a smaller size) 

And don't you LOVE that sink?  If we didn't have one that has been sitting in our garage for the past 10 years and is already paid for I would have been all over this one!  

Here is choice two--

Right now I'm leaning more towards choice two.  I'm really liking the industrial look of it but I think I would switch out the globes with white ones like the ones in my inspiration photo.  

Our sink top is a plain white double bowl pretty basic boring sink.  I would love to paint it marbley like the one in my inspiration photo but I have no experience or knowledge in that type of faux painting and I guess my practice piece shouldn't be the sink I have to live with for the next 10 years.  (or maybe it should be, then I might have an excuse to buy that sink above!)  But it is something that I plan to eventually learn.  So until then I will try and dress it up with some awesome faucets.  

And have you looked at bathroom faucets lately? There are so many choices out there I'm finding it a bit overwhelming!   

But I keep going back to this waterfall style.

So I think it will be one of these two.  What do you think?  










I haven't started looking for the tub/shower/tile/bath faucets, etc since I'm not expecting us to get that far. Of course now that I said that you can bet we will fly through the room in record time but have none of the materials to finish it...  Oh well, I guess we will cross that bridge when we come to it!  

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On another note- I'm just finishing up the white TV cabinet with the chicken wire doors that I showed in my last post.  Make sure you come back to see the finished product!      

Thanks for stopping by!

Donna