Back to Building! Vanity project

It has been a long, long time since I built anything other than shelves...and although there were a few hiccups along the way, it felt GOOD!

Here is my latest project:

And please excuse the cell-phone photos--it's all I got before it went to it's new home! 

You may be wondering why this is titled as a "vanity."  Well, that's what this piece will be when it finally grows up all the way!  But it's not for MY home, so the final drilling and installing hasn't happened  yet.

FIVE years ago...I can't believe it's been that long...I built the Grand Truss table and benches for a client, followed by the Grand Rustic-X buffet.  This spring she contacted me to ask if I was still building, and if so...would I be interested in building a vanity for her??

This is the inspiration photo she sent me.  Isn't it gorgeous?? I love the top-mount sink and that gorgeous tile wall!  And barn doors---oh, how I've wanted to do something with a barn door! 

I warned her up front that I had NOT built anything with barn door before, but I was willing to try if she was willing to take a risk on me!

Thankfully she was also very flexible on timing.  My spring/summer/early fall were all crazy!  So this project got delayed until the second half of October, and I spent two weeks living in the garage until it was done.

The barn door hardware is the SmartStandard barn door hardware kit from Amazon.  Yes, there are lots of DIY hardware tutorials out there...but this kit matched the look of the inspiration piece SO well.  The only issue was that it was made for 60" and the client wanted the vanity to be 50"...so it did require some hardware surgery.


Did you catch the fact that I only had a PICTURE to go off of to build this piece??   A picture, a length, and a depth.  That was the sum total of my instructions. 



I sketched out the barest details (thank goodness it was a simple design), plugged in some measurements and constructed a basic cut list.  Ordered the hardware and away I went!




















The frame was a simple box, mainly made out of stock 2x4s.  Based on the inspiration photo, the shelves sit on top of the horizontal supports between the legs (see right), but I trimmed them with 2x2s.  You can see how they sit above the level of the shelf supports.

It gives the impression that the shelves are notched out to fit around the legs, but they are really separate pieces.  I cut down 2x6 lumber to make the shelves--both to get rid of the rounded edges and get the width that I needed.  I did the same thing to make the countertop, and the boards are all held together with pocket holes.

Pictures are a little few and far between.  October days in a garage in the Pacific Northwest are not the best photo-ops.  I worked on applying the finish, and had to sand down the whole top and start again with stain about twice.  Despite applying pre-stain conditioner, the stain didn't want to "take" evenly.

I was pretty nervous about putting the barn door hardware all together.  It's VERY bulky, and I was worried about it clearing the countertop just right (it did), but when I hung the doors--I encountered another problem.

When I hung the doors AT THE MEASUREMENTS SPECIFIED in the instructions...There was about an inch gap between the frame and the doors.  It bugged me.  A lot!!  I ended up putting a second trim piece behind the doors to hide the gap.  In the end--it will probably be for the best, as it will help hide pipes under the sink.

You can see they look much better (no gap!) on the finished product.

I had to play a little bit with staging, since I don't have a sink to put on top of it....

And I apologize again for bad pictures and bad lighting (not that I could do much about that one).

I'm anxious for my client to finish her bathroom so I can see what it will look like in her space!  Although I do think it also makes a nice console...entertainment center...buffet...whatever!

But I think it turned out pretty close to the inspiration photo, don't you think?

Triple Printers Console Cabinet

There was a strong temptation for me to entitle this post:  “She’s not dead.  Not yet.”  (And if you know what movie character I’m paraphrasing, you get 10 Chicken Points.)

It has been a very looonnnngg while since I’ve posted, or even been particularly active on the blogs at all.  I seem to have been part of the “where does blogging fit into my life” club…as I’ve found several other bloggers who have also taken long breaks, trying to answer that question!

I think I just managed to burn myself out a little between a summer market, a fall market, and Christmas signs for two shops and one small show.  Then there were Christmas preparations…and finally, a break!  It was delightful.  I loved that week after Christmas where there was really nothing I had to do!  Do you ever feel that way?

With shows and special orders out of the way for a while, I decided to tackle a “home” project…our family room.  When we moved in here (just over a year ago), the family room was the room where we put everything that we couldn’t figure out another place for…it became the dumping ground.  The kids used the room because it was where the TV was, but I almost never went in there, even to watch a movie…I hated everything about it!

So in the past few weeks, it has been my happy-although-at-times-frustrating task to make it in to a more useable, functional, and pretty place for our family to use.  I’ll share some “before” pictures at another time, but for tonight, I just thought I’d share my one major “build” for this room.

I fell in love with Ana White’s Triple Printers Console plans when they first appeared more than a year ago.  It was one of the first items I “pinned” for inspiration to my Family Room Pinterest board (if you visit, you might find some other hints of what is going on in this room).

I knew I wanted a painted finish, however, more like the Pottery Barn Dawson Media Console, and this is what I ended up with (the picture above looks a little greener than real life, I think).  First I stained the whole cabinet with Rustoleum American Walnut stain, then I painted with a DIY chalk paint made with sample pot of Valspar Perfect Storm.  After some heavy distressing, I glazed it all with more stain, then used MMS wax in both regular and dark to protect it all.

This was a challenging build in some ways—namely, the cabinet doors.  There is more of a gap around them than I would like, but it doesn’t bother me as much now that I’ve lived with it for a while.  I discovered that you should NOT buy the cheapest hinges you can find because, well….they’re cheap.  At 22” wide, these door are heavy, and cheap hinges tend to sag…and there’s nothing you can do about it.  I may be a little bitter about that. 

One of the things that made this a simpler build, however, was that I splurged for Select Pine.  It’s significantly more expensive, but SO lovely and smooth—hardly any sanding required!  I still had to hunt…and hunt….and hunt some more (at two different stores)…to find straight 2x2’s, but once I did, it was easy to build nice and square with those perfect corners.

I omitted the center drawer and just put in a shelf to store the DVD player and the Wii console.  Then my other splurge was to buy three Flipworks DVD trays through Amazon.  Each rack screws directly onto the shelves, but then slides out so you can access all of your movies.  We have stored our DVDs in IKEA boxes for a long time, and you had to go through every box to find the movie you wanted (yes, I’d considered labeling the boxes, but there’s no point when you have 6 children who never put anything away properly).

I adore all the label pulls, which I purchased from D. Lawless Hardware (they are VERY reasonably priced!).  I really have no plans to put actual labels in them….I think they are pretty just the way they are!

This new console is really the focal point of the whole room, and it makes me happy every time I walk in there—a far cry from how I used to feel!  I am still anxious to get everything put together so I can show off the room, but it is coming together…piece by piece!

 

Thanks to Someday Crafts, Elizabeth & Co., My Repurposed Life, and Domestically Speaking for featuring this project!

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Linking up here:

The Inspiration Exchange	Elizabeth & Co.
Primitive & Proper	Thrifty Décor Chick
Friday Remodelaholic	The Scoop!
Funky Junk’s Saturday Night Special	The DIY Show Off Miss Mustard Seed
Beyond the Picket Fence	Coastal Charm
Knick of Time	Domestically Speaking
Perfectly Imperfect
Common Ground	My Repurposed Life
From My Front Porch to Yours	Mod Vintage Life