The Vanity

"I loathe narcissism, but I approve of vanity." --Diana Vreeland

I *love* a good deal, and that means I *love* me a good yard sale. I always look forward to getting up early on summer weekends and seeing what discarded crap my neighbors are getting rid of treasures I can find!

Last Saturday I went garage sale-ing with my friend Amy, a renowned deal-finder. Riding shotgun with Lady Luck was a blast, I found this vanity at the first sale we went to:

Me: What are you asking for this?
Garage Sale Lady: Make me an offer.
Me: Oh, I really don't have room for it, I was just wondering.
Garage Sale Lady: I don't know... ten dollars?
Me: ...I'll make room.

So I took it home and busted out my leftover supplies from my hutch makeover. The thing was, I really, REALLY, REALLY didn't want to sand. I had sanded my hutch down to bare wood, and it was #1) incredibly time-consuming, and #2) an enormous pain in the behind. Or, literally, the arms.

So I read up about it online, and it seemed like the best solution was to *lightly* sand the surfaces, then use a good primer to get the paint to stick. So I went ahead and lightly sanded with 180 grit sandpaper... and by "lightly", I mean that sanding all surfaces of the vanity (including the drawer fronts) took about three minutes. Boom, done. Much more my style.

Whoop! All done! After sanding, I wiped down the vanity with a wet rag, and once it had air-dried, it was time to prime. I used Kilz Original primer, which is oil-based, and the Lowes Guru Lady told me it'll be discontinued soon, because it's so bad for the environment. (What's the opposite of eco-friendly? Eco-hostile?) To use it, I wore a mask and latex gloves (which I picked up in a ten-pack from Dollar Tree). All the supplies have to be discarded at Hazo House when I'm done, too. It's bad stuff.

But I'll tell you what: the paint sticks.

I forgot to take a photo of the priming step of the process, so please accept this dramatic re-enactment:

I let the primer dry overnight, and the next day I rolled on two coats of Valspar's Caribbean Walk, the same paint I used for my hutch. It has great coverage and I love the creamy, slightly off-white color.

Funds are low this month (too much garage sale-ing?), so I couldn't afford new hardware. I liked the mid-century feel of the original hardware on the vanity, though, so I kept those and spray painted them black with Rustoleum's Satin Black.

After everything dried it was time to re-assemble.
During this process I inexplicably lost two screws, so a Lowes run was in order.

Here's a close-up of the spray-painted hardware. It turned out great!

Side-note: Does anyone know why this happens? See how the paint got all funkily textured? This happened a few times and I'm not sure why... Maybe because my lazy ass couldn't be bothered to wash the hardware before painting? : /

Here's how the final product turned out:

One more look at the transformation:

Love it! And it was so simple and fast because I had most of the materials on-hand, and I took it easy on the sanding. What about you? Have you had any projects that were actually easier than you expected?

<3 Cara