Vanity & Dresser Refinish

Thank you for all the kind comments about my daughter’s bedroom makeover, both here and on Facebook!  It was so fun to get to work on this with her.  She is always my sounding board for the various crazy ideas I have, but this time she was truly invested in the project!

One of our first steps in her room remodel was finding some new furniture for her to use.  The $100 junky particle board set I bought four years ago (at her request, make no mistake about that!) was promptly sold—for the same price I paid for it!  There’s just no accounting for tastes, is there??

We scoured Craigslist for a vanity/dresser set, and finally came home with these for $150:

Only $50 more, and this time it was actually decent furniture!

Well, you can see the finish on the top was in REALLY rough shape.  But structurally everything was sound, and the veneer was in very good condition…a couple of chips here and there, but nothing major.

The “to-paint-or-not-to-paint” question was discussed at length, but Naomi eventually decided on “not.”

Since she wanted a darker stain, I decided to use my favorite miracle product, General Finishes Gel Stain (no, unfortunately they don’t pay me to say that) in Antique Walnut.  

You can see how I used it in my card catalog refinish here and a bedroom set here.

The great thing about this gel stain is that you DON’T have to completely remove the old finish.  Rough it up, yes—but if you’re going darker, you don’t have to go down to bare wood.  You can see how I lightly sanded the bottom half of the side of the dresser below.

I did have to do some more serious sanding on the top of the vanity.  Where the poly finish had worn away over time the colors were very splotchy—so I had to do a little more work to get everything back to the same tone.

But oh, look at what a difference ONE coat of gel stain made!

I ended up using two coats on everything, followed by two coats of General Finishes Polyurethane.

And oh, I think it was worth it!

The handles are original, I just cleaned them up a bit a lot!

And I recovered the vanity bench in a fun yellow and white chevron.

Have you ever used gel stain before?  What did you think of it?

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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	No Minimalist Here
Common Ground	My Repurposed Life
From My Front Porch to Yours	Mod Vintage Life A Little Knick Knack

Nursery Wall

I have one of the best neighbors on the planet. Not only does she run over here on a moment's notice to give her opinion on any and all of the projects I work on, but she and her husband also helped a TON in getting me to the Spring Market a few weeks ago!

In return, she gets to shop through my garage once in a while. :-)

When she was looking for ideas for her daughter's bedroom wall, she discovered this mirror in my stash:


I painted it with Rustoleum Heirloom White for her, and then we glazed it with brown craft paint. Unfortunately...it was still a little too "creamy." So we tried glazing it with white paint next, and it worked great! It toned down the "creamy" and made it work better with the whites in the nursery. (I loved the white glazing so much I used it on a few projects right after that!)

Here's the wall space before:

And here's the beautiful AFTER!

The "L" was one of those gold "L"'s from Hobby lobby. I painted it pink, and then we glazed it with white to give it some depth. She already had the footprints framed, and we found a complementary white frame for the yellow temple picture she found on-line. I will claim the brilliant idea of using a plate for the 5th element, but she found the perfect bird plate at Pier 1 (there are other bird decorations in the room).

I never had the money, time, or interest to decorate a nursery when my babies were little...glad I get to live vicariously through my neighbor's baby now!

Be sure to check out this post for a giveaway! Ends May 2.