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Vanity Fair

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The office bathroom makeover has officially begun!  Hip Hip Hooray!

Yes, it is awkward when I am the only one cheering…alone…in my house…with my arms in the air…thanks.

But seriously – I could not wait another second to get the vanity outta the bathroom and get to work.  I knew that the trim…the chocolate brown trim…would take a little time to paint.  Three to four coats in white = lots naps.  And because I usually need a little instant-gratification when starting a project, I thought that the trim could wait while I slapped some paint on the vanity.

Remember the vanity?  Yeah.  Builder grade basic boring stuff.  Jer removed it for me by unscrewing the pipes (obviously we turned off the water first – duh – like we would ever forget that – no never – at least not after we did it the first time) and the countertop simply came off…because it was just laying on top.  unscrewed.  and unglued.  (enter dirty joke here about laying on top unscrewed and unglued – there are too many to count)

ANYHOO…the plan was to spice up the vanity with a little color.  I am not skeered of painting me a vanity a bold color (I did it once already in this house – remember?) so this time around I picked a hue that would be a little more feminine and a lot more fun.

Some folks asked if the plan was to wash it with the color instead of making it more matte – the answer to that is no.

Why?

Well, the vanity had some issues.  First, there was the issue of the toilet paper holder…that we were planning to remove and then patch the holes.  When you add a little filler to holes and sand them down, a wash would still allow peeps sitting on the loo to see the fix.  And then there was the issue of “the door circle”.  As you can see in the picture below, the left hand door has a weird circle.  It’s like the wood was patched at some point in manufacturing.  I just hope that Napolean got this baby at a discount.

So with our errors – a wash was out and a more solid color was in.  Of course, I knew that with only a few coats some of the grain would still show…fine by me of course…so it wouldn’t look like a solid piece from like Ikea or something like that but definitely more like painted wood.

After removing the tp holder, I filled the holes and waited for them to dry before sanding.  I also wiped down the entire piece with a damp cloth.  Here’s where I get all info-tastic on ya….

Since I planned on using spray primer (oil based spray primer that claims it will stick to anything) I did not sand the entire piece.  If you are scared of painting a piece and believe your existing finish is too slick – it doesn’t hurt to sand.  If you use a waterbased primer & paint in one – I would sand.  I ALWAYS sand the tops of pieces…just simply because that is what gets the most ‘touches’…but since this piece had a countertop that was removed, it was an extra step I felt unnecessary 🙂

I taped off the hinges and the inside lip – just in case…

And used spray primer.

Here’s Will managing the assessment of the piece after it had dried.  And why yes, that is his official outfit for managing and assessing 🙂

I love spray primer.  Let me just tell you how much I love it.  It’s borderline an obsession.  I have been known to skip dinner just to drive out to get more.  A dinner with bacon! And it cuts down on the commitment.  Sure it costs more but it is totally worth it.  Because frankly, sometimes I don’t want to even start painting something just simply because the primer stage takes way too long.  And the clean up on an oil based primer or shellac based primer takes a long time too.  My time is precious to me as I am sure yours is too.  Yet another reason why I love spray primer.  I wish I could spray prime the bathroom and the office…hey…that’s an idea 🙂

I ended up choosing Park Place by Allen & Roth for the paint color.  I purchased one of the little $3 pots from Lowe’s (gift card in hand since they are the ones making this reno possible!) and used about half.

This is my favorite brush for furniture painting.  It’s a 2 inch angled short handled brush from Purdy.  You must own one of these if you are painting anything…ever.  It’s worth every cent.

Two coats later, we have a very muted turquoise vanity.  Fist bump me!

I carried it inside to see how it would look with the vanity top…very classy indeed.  I’ll talk Jer into removing that faucet asap 🙂   But so far – we are moving right along.

Sooo….what have you guys been up to lately?  Any more projects?  Any weekend house progress?  Any turquoise lovahs?  Anybody making their vanities a little fairer?  Spill.  Not the paint…the news 🙂

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  1. LOVVVVVEEEE the color! Cant believe 3 dollars made that vanity go from builders cheap to chic glam 🙂 Holla! The vanity top even looks nice with it, bonus! Love your blog and love this post. By the way, have you seen the bacon cupcakes? yup. They exist 🙂

  5. I wasn’t really feeling the color in your mood board (not that my opnion counts on that lol), but I really like this. And wasn’t it nice of Napoleon to leave it unattached so you could take it outside to paint??? At least there was an upside to that one.

  6. I love the turquoise color – and good thinking with taking it out – I once painted a vanity and made such a mess because we left it in place (that vanity has since met the inside of a dumpster).

    This was a busy/productive weekend here. I did a few Valentine’s day projects – blogged about those. And my lovely husband put up a new ceiling fixture in the kids playroom.

    I can’t wait to see more of your bathroom update!

  7. Absolutely love it, Katie. And your little helper is adorable. 🙂 just read a back post you wrote about people posting negative, discouraging comments on here and I just want to tell you I love your blog and check it every day. You are so creative and have such great style. And you’re right, it’s YOUR blog so say whatever YOU want. 🙂

  9. I LOVE purdy brushes!! Like an obsession level of love. It was great to meet you yesterday and I’ll send your gloves – they got left behind at the donut table 🙂

  11. Ooooooh I love the color!! So pretty!! You did a great job- I can’t wait to see how you pull the rest of the bathroom together!! Did you hear that Jack n’ the Box has a bacon shake?!? Too bad there aren’t any in Georgia- but it looks like South Carolina and Tennessee both have Jack n’ the Boxes if you get a major craving!! Also, there’s a donut shop in Athens, GA that sells a peanut butter, bacon and banana donut. Mmmmm 🙂

  12. Love the color! We’re going to be doing a bathroom remodel this year and I’m thinking about painting our vanity a similar color as yours rather than the typical white. Seeing yours gives me confidence to go for it! Thanks.

  13. LOVE the color! Can’t wait to see how the rest of the project unfolds as we are embarking on a bathroom renovation ourselves in the very near future.

  14. Love the turquoise! And the second you mentioned having chocolate brown trim, I perked up — my bathroom’s trim and built-in cabinet are also chocolate brown. AND, strangely enough, I’m planning on attacking said bathroom this weekend/next week (a week’s vacation, baby!). Thanks for some motivation! 🙂

  15. wow it looks great!! 🙂 allllmost as great as your new hair. 😉 can’t wait to see it finished.

  16. Ok, seeing you tackle your bathroom makes me want to tackle mine! Everytime I walk into the bathroom I get a huge urge to reno!!! Oh Lord, restrain my implusive desires (cause I don’t have Lowe’s $$ or any other $$)
    I am super excited to see more of this project!!
    P.S. Thanks for sharing the spray on primer info! It will come in handy for when I get to tackle my bathroom.

  17. Love the color, and I’m even more inspired to paint my builder grade cabinets. And yes, I noticed the door circle earlier and I’m glad I wasn’t imagining it!

  19. ahh you make it seem so painless. I have 2 vanities left to paint and after I painted our whole kitchen this summer (white from builder grade exactly like your vanity) and it didn’t turn out perfect I’ve lost steam and can’t decide what to do. I used the Rustoleum Kit for the kitchen…wondering if I should do it the traditional way for the bathrooms, or if I should just leave them and save my pennies until I could buy a new vanity, etc…but then it’s a slippery slope and I’ll want a $10k bathroom in my modest SoCal condo. The spray primer looks AWESOME. But my vanities are double sink size… and I don’t have a big yard- just a large patio, so I’m thinking it might be a no go?

  23. Looks great. I need to try some of that spray primer. I regularly ruin brushes by not cleaning them right after a project. If I’m being honest with myself, spending a little more on spray primer might still cost me less than replacing brushes and buckets and whatnot because I failed to clean them properly.

    But using any sort of spray paint for a large space is a miserable experience. I tried resurfacing our tub and tile (just blogged about our whole bathroom renovation here: http://www.thebookofjimmy.com/?p=455), and aside from the hours of pain the project was a total failure. We had to basically start over with the brush-on version. It’s hard to get even-layers out of spray paint. Especially when you’re working with something that needs to look good.

  24. Cool color on the vanity! We do the bathrooms first in our house, too. We did the bigger hall bath in 2009 and are finally doing our master shower. We took the tile off the shower walls and the texture off in Jan. 2011 and it just stayed like that for a year!! Now we’re finally busting our butt to get it done. So this weekend we took out the tile on the floor and the shower pan to get it all ready for the plumber and a new sloped floor! We finally order the lights and fixtures too. I’m so excited to get this ball rollling!

  25. Perfect color!

    So you used a brush on the entire piece… how did you prevent drag marks? Is it the primer? A steady hand/even pressure, thing? Or am I really the worst painter in the world and would be the only person to get drag marks?!

  28. I know we’ve all heard this before… but wow what a differnce a little color can make!! Looks fabulous so far!!

  29. LOVE IT! And glad to see this is a fairly simple process. If things work out with my current beau, I will have lots of “builder grade” projects to tackle. 🙂

  30. Love the color. Good call! I’ve been thinking about painting our dining room chairs a similar color.

  31. Holla Holla Three Dolla!! That looks amazing… perfect color choice!! I was so excited when I saw this post, I painted our childrens vanity a similar color not long ago… very NERVOUS about it… thought I may be the only person out there with enough nerve-craziness-indifference to paint a vanity TURQUOISE! But alas, no! Here’s mine.. and I think your floor selection may be copied in the near future dear girl.

    http://akstarrfamily.blogspot.com/2011/04/bathroom-project.html

  32. Really great colour! What’s your process for deciding on a shade? I always stand there in utter confusion and amazement at all the choices. Gut feeling? Eeny meeny? Or are you just a colour genius? 😉 Happy Monday!

  34. I love that color! Total upgrade, and I never would’ve believed that was a standard vanity with $3 of paint. Can’t wait to see what your plans are for the rest of the room!

  35. FIST BUMP!!…loving the new color!! seriously: what a transformation,

    Will inspecting tyour painting….his outfit is BEYOND adorable 🙂 and those boots….totally looks like he’s inspecting lol….so so so cute 🙂

  36. Glad to see that I’m not the only ones who measures projects in number of naptimes. Your vanity looks fabulous! It’s giving me ideas about ours…

  37. I wasn’t really feeling the color in your mood board (not that my opnion counts on that lol), but I really like this. And wasn’t it nice of Napoleon to leave it unattached so you could take it outside to paint??? At least there was an upside to that one.

  39. I love the blog neew look with those blue little flowers… very springish… (is that a word?) The vanity color is wonderfull either. Good job.

  41. Looks so pretty. When you were talking about the wash technique being out of the question because of the few blemishes already there, I thought maybe a beadboard panel on the side might be a nice accent with your beachy theme you have going on. It would hide the blemishes and add some texture and charm. Just a thought. Can’t wait to see how it turns out!

  42. Love the vanity…and something totally off subject…we have Jack in the Box fast food restaurants here in St. Louis, MO and they now have a bacon shake! I thought of you when I saw the commercial 🙂

  43. Hi Katie,
    Love your vanity and how it turned out. Can’t wait to see it done! (I bet you can’t either).

    First, I want to say, your hair looks fabulous. Secondly, my children are grown but they had outfits like Wills (cracked me up). Thirdly, please oh please tell me how you did your “mood/design board”!

    Love your blog.

    Mandy
    projectqueen.org

  46. First of…LOVE Will’s outfit…my little lady has been know to rock similar attire. Loving the turquoise color as well…can’t wait to see the end product. My builder’s vanity is in desperate need of some paint!

  48. Ooohhhhh….I just LOVE that color!! I didn’t even realize Allen+Roth had paint at Lowes! Doh! I can’t wait to see what comes next for your bathroom (I’m wanting to re-do our guest bathroom so I need all the ideas I can get)! xoxo

  53. Love the turquoise color! Any tips for painting a vanity that is stuck in place (i.e. can’t be spray primed outside)? I have one in each of my bathrooms, and the color is just plan eek… much like yours in the before image.

  56. This is looks amazing! We are remodeling our master bath and will likely be painting the vanity. Thanks for the great tips!

  57. I’m getting ready to tackle our main and half baths this year. I wish I could paint the vanities a a fun color like that, it looks amazing. Unfortunately, we’re only going to be here about 2 more year max so right now we’re still decorating for the masses. Hopefully when we build our dream home, I can get some color around here!

  58. 3 things I love about this post:
    1) You said “skeered.” Made me giggle. 🙂
    2) Will’s outfit. Awesome.
    3) The new vanity color! Gorgeous!

  59. very nice!! I’m working on our downstairs bath right now too… stripes. I can’t believe your little boy is holding that paint brush and being so good! Mine could’ve had turquoise paint all over his face in about 1.5 seconds. 🙂

  61. Looks very pretty. I really like the color. I just finished my office makeover, I’ll be showing it off tomorrow if you have a minute to stop by that would be fabulous. But I’m already onto doing my daughters nursery again, I feel like she needs a change. Which is kind of awkward bc I always work when she sleeps…so idk what I’ll do to make over her room.

  62. I love the color! We are renovating our bathroom too, painting trim this week!

    Random, but I saw that Jack and the Box has a bacon milkshake now, and I thought you should know!

  63. That looks fantastic! I love the soft blue with the white countertop, so pretty 🙂

    I picked up a vanity for $25 at a garage sale over the weekend that is the exact right size for our bathroom, so I’m looking forward to prettifying that!

    I can’t wait to see how the rest of your bathroom makeover goes. The number of bathrooms in your house almost makes me glad we’ve only got one. Almost.

  64. Katie!!! You are ridiculous….ly FUNNY! You put me in a good mood on bad days and a better mood on great days! I love the color….beautifully classy! I was wondering what kind of spray primer you used. I am about to redo our laundry room cabinets and I want to NOT sand 😉

  65. Love it! And I’m so jealous that you live in a place that’s warm enough to do this outside right now… I’m itching to paint some of our furniture, but in New Hampshire, that’s not happening for a couple more months…

  70. Well, if I were you, I would definitely use a Zinnser brand primer – probably shellac based. It dries really fast so just remember to work fast!
    xo – kb

  75. Love the new vanity! It is really looking great. The picture of Will with the paint brush is super cute! I actually have been a small project frenzy lately. I just actually did a project that was inspired by pinterest.

    http://www.portugalponderings.blogspot.com/2012/02/pinterest-project-mr-mrs.html

    Awhile ago though, I take on the huge task of painting my old bedroom furniture to become “renewed” guest bedroom furniture… My lucky guests 🙂 heehee. The thing about this furniture was that it was laminate. Turned out great though!

    http://www.portugalponderings.blogspot.com/2011/02/diy-furniture-portugal-style.html

    I can’t wait to see how the bathroom turns out… I am sure it will be fabulous (as always) :)!

  76. Hi – my fiance and I have just recently discovered and really enjoy reading about your remodeling projects. We have a kitchen and bathrooms full of the builders grade oak cabinets that you just painted. We’re curious to know how much of the woodgrain shows through the paint after you used the oil-based spray primer along with the paint? Any suggestions would be truly appreciated!

    Thanks!

  77. Yes. I used some common sense and figured if lowes was sponsoring the make over thats probably where it is from so I scoped it out on lowes.com. I’m totally gonna copy off you 😉

  80. LOVE me some turquoise and any shade close to it! I’m working on a half bath myself…need a new vanity or pedestal…still in debate stage! First I have to find a new light fixture! Can’t wait to see the finished bathroom! Good luck!

  82. That last photo is probably the truest representation of how much grain you can see. It has some evidence that it is still wood but it’s not the first thing you think when you see it.
    xo – kb

  85. I’m excited to see you tackle more painting jobs around your home. I was wondering, how will you take on the high high ceilings in your living room? Will that be a DIY job, or will you call in a painter? I ask because we are purchasing a home with very high ceilings in the main living area and they are painted a not so pretty builder neutral, but I have no idea how we would even be able to reach the tops of the walls.

    Good luck with the bathroom makeover!

  87. It looks great, Katie. I’m currently working on a small end table in a turquoise color. Mine may be a little too bright, though. I tried adding a glaze, but it muddied it up too much, so I’m going to paint it again and see if I like the turquoise any better second time around. Yep, I’m kinda’ fickle.

  89. We kinda have two options. One – do it ourselves with scaffolding. A friend told us that you can rent it for $25 a day…so that’s an option. Or we could pay someone to do it…which actually sounds more reasonable for us because both Jer & I are afraid of heights.
    xo – kb

  91. The color looks great, Katie! My parents have the same builder’s-grade cabinets (same color, too) in their kitchen and all three bathrooms. They’re thinking of painting, so this is good to see!

  93. I never would have thought to buy the little sample paint pots! But aren’t those usually flat paint?? Is flat paint a problem in a bathroom, with the moisture and the ease of cleaning the cabinet? (My boys do not aim too well when they tinkle)

  94. Some lines of paint have flat and some have semi gloss! I don’t know which is which right off the top of my head but I know the Valspar mini pot I used was a Satin finish.
    xo – kb

  95. thanks! you’re the greatest! I will look into it, and hope to have a newly painted cabinet for a few bucks soon!

  97. You can subscribe with lots of different options – it’s worth clicking out the little icon above our face that looks like it’s on fire 🙂
    xo- kb

  98. Looks great! We’ve run into a problem with the vanity in our master bath. Before the previous owners left, they whipped in some trim and it wasn’t until we moved in that we discovered the drawers won’t fully open! We would love to move the vanity but the sink-top is grouted to the wall. Where’s the easy button?! Did y’all have to remove any grout attached to the back lip of the sink topper?

  99. No. There wasn’t any grout. I would recommend a Dremel with a grout tip…that should allow you to grind through it without damaging anything. Hope that helps!
    xo – kb

  100. Love love love it. I have a builders cabinet that requires some love and I think its looking for some aqua love.. Can you tell me again, so I don’t get mixed up, what brand and color of paint you used? Did you do any distressing when you were done, or glazing?

    thanks muchly.
    Debbie Cadene,
    Ontario

  101. It’s Roth + Allen brand…just a sampler done in Park Place. And no…no distressing or glazing 🙂 Happy Painting!
    xo – kb

  102. Gorgeous! Katie, is the vanity wood or particle board like something from Ikea? This is very inspirational. Great job.

  104. I love this redo! I’m afraid of picking colors because we have tile that just looks dirty (it’s not I promise). I’m so jealous 🙁

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