10.21.10

Thrifty Thursday – Craigslist Vanity

Posted in Main, Sharing the Handmade Love, Thrifty Thursday! at 3:18 pm by carrie

I mentioned this 1920′s vanity in yesterday’s post… I’ve had it for over a year and just now finally painted it.

I got it on Craigslist… not in the best shape, but it still cleaned up pretty well :) I only paid $60.00. In California I would have paid well over $100+ for it :) So, I’m feeling pretty good about this purchase ;)

It had some veneer coming up in places. Most of it I just painted over, but in one place I smooshed in some wood glue in-between the veneer and the underlying wood. I then put down a piece of wax paper with a piece of wood over it and clamped it. I let that dry overnight before painting.

To get it into paint-ready shape and evict a few spiders… I hosed it off and then promptly got distracted, which led to a few warped drawer bottoms :/ So, I wouldn’t recommend hosing it off unless you have towels at the ready. A damp toweling off will do if you don’t trust yourself ;) I then lightly sanded it and wiped off the sanding residue. Then, I used a spray paint primer in a can. You’ll need 2 cans to get the job done. Then I used 2 cans of this black spraypaint over the primer. Very easy!

I was reaallllyyyy sloppy about painting the mirror. First, I sanded the frame lightly. I then literally got a few pieces of cardstock paper and slid it in-between the wood frame and the mirror and sprayed the frame with black paint and moved the paper as I sprayed. I had to change paper as it got saturated with paint. It was the quickest way to get the job done, but I won’t lie… it made a mess! I had to scrub my hands and nails and had to scrape the excess paint off the mirror. But, it was still a lot quicker to do it this way than to prime it and paint it or paint it by hand. Super lazy and quick.

All-in-all it looks pretty good, it’s sturdy, the wheels roll well and the large mirror is super cool. The silver in the mirror is starting tarnish a bit and it’s crackling, too, but I find that very charming :)

Because I don’t know when to stop… I may cover the vanity with hand-painted flowers. Oh, and it needs some knobs, too… maybe I’ll get to that in the next 18 months… but at least it’s painted and in a room other than the garage :)

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