A New Look for the Vanity

The main floor has one bathroom.  Although we’re planning to re-do things in there, we want to wait until we have finished a few other things first.  Like the other bathroom in our master room, and trim, and taping and mudding all the seams in the new area, and closets in the mudroom, and a sink for the mudroom, and….  Well there are several things that are just more important than beautifying a hard-working bathroom which is already serving us just fine.

Besides, it’s not like I haven’t done a little to it already.  And it has helped some. I painted the walls, and added a drop cloth shower curtain outside of the shower door, to hide the dark green tiles.  The tiles look new, so it’s wasteful to replace them at this point. But the vanity! It is so dark! And green marble would never be my choice for the countertop. 

I’d love to have bead board wainscot on the walls, recessed shelving and a little cabinet next to the shower, and then a vanity with a hutch kind of thing built alongside it.  It’s all in my head, and I am confident my handyman will have no problem accomplishing it.  But not yet. :)

 

Well, Saturday, I was washing my hands, looking up at the light fixture. Thinking.  Hmmmmm…. it’s not a bad fixture, I could get some of the metallic paint leftover from the chandelier I just painted in the hallway and see if that would help.

So I pulled in a chair and grabbed the paint and a small artist’s brush.  And I painted it where it was.  No need to take it down.

 

After it was finished, I decided to take the globes to GW and pick up 3 clear ones at Menards.  They were very affordable at less than $3 each.  And it was much better!  Brighter and prettier.

 

While I was at Menards, I visited the “oops” paint section.  It’s usually one lonely shelf, at the far end of the paint section.  It has paints, etc. that were mixed and then cast aside.  There was one little jar with a charcoal gray kind of dot on the lid.  It looked like it might be a great color for the bathroom vanity.  And for 50 cents, I felt like it was a risk I could afford.

 

I was so excited to get started on it, that I completely forgot the about the groceries in the back of the van.  Thank goodness it was a cool day!  After almost 5 hours, the ice cream was melting, but everything was ok.

I sanded the vanity, primed it, and painted a total of 2 coats of the gray paint.  Then I lightly sanded some of the decorative parts.

It was only slightly inconvenient for everyone. 

But I love how it turned out!

 

I also painted the mirror with the metallic paint, and changed the fabric on the bi-fold panel.  I had enough of a long piece of lace fabric to replace the 2 outside panels and then I cut part of an old white linen tablecloth for the center. I didn’t even hem the bottoms this time, just cut them so they draped softly.  Since I don’t imagine the panel being here permanently, this was a happy compromise for me.

What do you think?

   

    

Even the green marble countertop isn’t quite as…. green!

Here’s a side by side comparison.

 

  

 

It wasn’t at all what I had planned for Saturday, which was to weed, but it was a very fruitful day nonetheless!