Vanity Makeover

Thanks for visiting The Turquoise Piano!  I hope everyone had a great weekend.  Today I'm going to share this project that I've been working on for like ever.  

Picture it.  Christmas, 1991 (I think -- 1990 was when I got my first CD player so it couldn't have been that year).  I was eleven years old and I got this beautiful vanity.  I loved it.  My cousin had one and she was so cool so I was excited to enter her realm.  

Now fast forward 2.1 decades and both Nielson sisters (me and my sister, who will be 11 in November) and you have the same vanity, slightly abused, and very in need of an update.  I took it home from my mom's when we did her big basement makeover.

I started by removing the top drawers and wood thing and filling the holes and cracks with wood filler.

Then I spray painted the handles black.  I did it while they were still attached so I could get the screws too.

Then a couple of months go by and we move and try to organize.  Finally I pulled it out of the garage and sanded it with a fine grit sandpaper (the one just courser than the finest).  

I washed and wiped off all the dust and then spray painted the edges black.  You'll see why soon.

Then I painted all the drawers white.

Next, I spray painted the entire thing gray and put the handles back on.

And then I started distressing the edges by sanding them.  This is where the black paint underneath comes in.  You can see that the black shows through when I sanded the gray off.

Since stenciling has been all the rage, I decided to try it out for myself so I taped the stencil down and sprayed it white.

And felt like an impatient idiot for not taping it all down and getting white everywhere.

So I sanded and painted the top gray again.

And painted the inside white while I was waiting for the other paint to dry.

But apparently I didn't wait long enough because this is what happened when I sanded again to get the paint to look the same.  Gah!

So I sanded and painted the flippin' thing once again.

This time I used a brush to do the stencil.  I still didn't read the instructions though.  I guess it works best if you spray some "adhesive" spray to the stencil before putting it on the project.  Well, since I didn't do that this time it leaked.  I was going to have a nice, crisp flower but it ended up not being very crisp.  But listen, I wasn't going to start over.  I mean, how much paint could I go through on this project (good thing I got it on clearance at Lowe's)?  I didn't even want to know.  So I let it dry (really this time -- like over night) and sanded, but only enough to distress it and make the flower look like it's supposed to look distressed because, uh, that was the plan.  Yeah.  Then I distressed other parts of the top too but that's okay because the edges were distressed so it matches.  

And voila, you've got an aesthetically pleasing configuration of project the humans go nuts over.  Name that movie (okay, it's not the real version).  

I wanted to take some great pictures of it in a field in the evening but it was already upstairs by the time I took pictures and it is in it's final resting place with some other projects that I will reveal throughout the week.  On Friday you get to see the entire "craft nook" reveal.  I love it!  I hope you will too.

One more time:

Before

After

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plus

Coastal Charm - Nifty Thrifty Tuesday

Savvy Southern Style - Wow Us Wednesday

Bunny Jeans Decor and More - The Bunny Hop

My Repurposed Life - Catch as Catch Can Party

Debbiedoos - Newbie Party