DIY Monday: Dresser to Bathroom Vanity? Part 3: The Big Finish!

If you read Part 2 of this series you'll see that I had a foot to replace on my vanity. The vanity was also full of dings that I wanted to fill in before painting the piece. Since I needed an open back for the pipes to go through, I pulled the back off of the vanity. I used spackling compound just as I would for a wall to fill in the gouges and holes. Just as you would with a wall, I waited for it to dry and then gave it a light sanding to smooth out the ridge.

I then lightly sanded down the whole piece to give the paint something to grab. Anytime you're painting a piece of furniture like this that has a finish on it (especially anything with a shine) it's a good idea to sand it down before you paint. It makes little tiny ridges for the paint to stick to instead of just a shiny surface on which the paint will streak or bead up. When you're finished sanding, run a cloth over the piece to get off what you've just sanded. Just to be safe, I also run over the piece with a tack cloth. A tack cloth is a cloth that's got sticky stuff on it made especially for this purpose. You can find it in the paint section of your home improvement store. The piece has to be clean before you paint it or you'll end up with little grainy bits in your paint instead of a smooth surface.

Before I painted the drawers, I wanted to replace the French Provincial handles with glass pulls. This required my filling the two holes required for the handles and drilling a single hole in the center of where the handle had been for the single pull. It's easier to do this before painting so you don't mar your paint and you can paint over the filled holes.

I used a shiny, oil based, outdoor paint on this piece because I wanted it to shine and wanted it to hold up to water. It is, after all, a bathroom vanity! I suggest, however, if you use an oil based paint, you get a set of brushes and rollers especially for this project as well as a pair of throw away gloves.

As I've said before, I like to be careful of the environment, but using turpentine to clean out a roller is almost impossible. Cleaning a paint brush is easier, but still difficult. For that reason, I usually use a wooden handled brush (cheap) and a roller I can throw away when I'm finished with the job. I start early in the day, cover my brush, roller and paint tray with plastic so it won't dry out, and then put on a second coat later in the day after the first coat has had time to cure (no longer tacky to the touch).

After two coats of paint, I checked for places I missed. Because there were so many cracks and angles on this piece, I really had to look at it from different angles to make sure all the brown was covered. Some opt to do some light sanding of the edges to let the brown underneath shine through for a more primitive look. I prefer the shiny opaque look!

Once the second coat dried, I then applied a coat of Deft to the top. And this is where my trouble began. Listen closely my friends for I am about to impart a piece of knowledge that will save you many hours and quite possibly your sanity. Never, NEVER use a latex paint over an oil-based paint. Never.

Now I know not to do this. I've known not to do this for most of my life because my Mama said, "Honey, never, NEVER use a latex paint over an oil-based paint." And I listened to my Mama and never did it... until now. I had just finished coating the entire top when I noticed the crackling, buckling and bubbling had started to occur. And THEN, I realized my mistake.

Many hours of stripping, sanding and repainting later, the vanity was ready to be installed. Since your "guts" will be different from my "guts" I won't get into how to hook up the pipes on the vanity. Every piece will be different and require creative problem solving on your part. I will say, however, you should set your sinks on the vanity and look at the placement before you cut your holes into the top.

In our case, we set the vessel sinks on top, measured from the side of the vanity to the base of the sink on both sides and in the front to make sure they were evenly placed. (Yes, this was during the sanding phase and before the repainting phase.) Once we were sure of placement, I marked the drain hole on the top of the dresser with a pen. We removed the sinks, drilled the holes and installed the sinks with the drains, hooked up the water pipes.

And then we stood back and admired our beautiful new vanity!

DIY Monday: Dresser to Bathroom Vanity? Part 2: The Fix

We found the dresser we wanted to use for our bathroom vanity. One of my "conditions" for the right piece, though, was that it had to be banged up enough that I could bear to paint it and cut holes in it to work in our bathroom. And this piece needed some TLC.

One of the lovely little feet was only half there. It needed repair. And I was just the girl to fix it!

First I turned to the Internet to find a molding compound that would make a mold of the foot that was still intact. I found something called Easy Mold Silicone Putty that was used for jewelry making, but I knew would work for this purpose. It's malleable for a few minutes and then takes about 30 minutes to "cure" or take it's final form. I shaped some of the putty around the remaining foot, left it to cure and then pulled off the finished mold.

I then took the mold to the missing foot and marked in the mold what was left in the foot. This gave me a measurement to follow when pouring my replacement foot. Since it was on an angle, I needed to tilt the mold so that the plaster would dry with a smooth surface at the right angle. I mixed some Plaster of Paris (from the paint section of my local home improvement store) and poured it into my mold. Since the mold is flexible silicon, I didn't worry about coating it with anything to make it release my form. If you look closely at the picture, you can see the black marks in the sides of the mold where I marked placement. I also placed the mold in a measuring cup to help tilt it in the correct position to dry at the right angle to attach the foot.

Once the plaster was cured (per the instructions on the box), I pulled it from the mold and fitted it to the foot of the dresser. There were a couple places that had to be gently filed down (with a metal nail file) for the fit to be perfect. Once I was satisfied with the fit, I then put a bit of liquid nails onto the plaster piece and fitted it to the existing leg. I left it alone to give it time to cure and then took some paintable caulk and filled in the seam where the two pieces joined, smoothing it with my fingers. Since I used oil paint on the piece to finish it, I didn't worry about sealing the plaster before painting. If, however, you are using latex paint, you should seal the plaster with a primer before painting.

Next up, preparing to paint...

DIY Monday: Dresser to Bathroom Vanity? Part 1: The Search

I love, love, love the look of a sideboard or dresser turned into a bathroom vanity. I looked at so many pictures of furniture that had been turned into a sink vanity. These top two options are from Canton Antiques, a shop that seems to specialize in this conversion and has some fabulous pieces! Others I found used sideboards or buffets, some used dressers, some used Victorian wash stands. Many replaced the top with a custom slab of marble. All looked expensive... and the ones I could actually buy WERE.

Yet again, we were working on a budget. We couldn't afford to drop $3,000 on a custom vanity. So we had to get creative in our search.

I knew we had to find a piece that left room for the pipes as that was the trickiest part of this

endeavor. As you're searching, you should also keep the following in mind: height, stability of legs, placement of pipes (do they come from the wall or the floor) storage needs, room for sinks on top, room for "work space" on top and dimensions of the area in which it will be placed.

Given my love of antique furniture, I really didn't want to tear apart a piece of furniture that was otherwise salvageable to use in it's original purpose. So the more scratched up, dinged up or beat up, the better for me.

When looking at possibilities, buffets often had cabinets that allowed room for the pipes, but they were on tall spindly legs that, once cut above the supports to make it short enough, would not provide us the support and stability we needed. Sideboards were lovely, but they usually had a row of drawers in the center that would need to be gutted giving us less storage space (a valuable commodity in our home). Dressers were often full of drawers as well.

We also had to keep in mind the dimensions of the space in which the finished piece would fit. Some were way too short for double sinks. Others were too long for our space. We had picked out the vessel sinks before we picked out the piece so we could be sure to have enough surface area on top for two sinks and some work space in between. We had to think about the placement of the drain as well - whether it would be in the center of a cabinet or the center of a support piece or drawer.

I looked at estate sales, on ebay, in used furniture stores and poured through Craigslist postings. In the end, we found a well-"loved" French Provincial dresser on Craigslist that was exactly the right length and height for our sinks, leaving some work space in between and that would fit in our space. The sides - the part that would be under the sink - had open cabinets that were perfect for the pipes and drains. We had to cut into one side of the drawers because our pipes came from the wall and were fixed in place, but the cuts were slight and easy to do. We still had the remaining drawers for storage space. And best of all, I had no problems painting and cutting this dresser up. It was perfect, but it was brown and needed some work to fit in our overall design. Stay tuned for how I did it!

* Click pictures to find their sources.