Bathroom Vanity & New Faucets

Hurray for me!  I just finished tackling the vanity in my guest bath and I'm realizing this is going to take much longer than I had hoped, when I get home from work I'm tired, can't seem to get very much done  ;-(

Earlier I had already painted the walls, tiles, soap dish, etc.  You can read more about that here.  

This was my next project   

I decided to add some detail to the sink by adding raised stenciling around the sink and on the doors.  If you're not sure about raised stenciling you can go here.

   BEFORE

 with stencil

raised stenciling

The door BEFORE (doors were taken down before I thought to take picture)

with raised stencil

raised stenciling

You can see I added a little paint to the compound before stenciling, that way when I'm ready to distress it the brown (rather than white compound) will show through. 

For painting I decided to go with homemade chalk paint ("HCP")  I used two colors, one was a Caramel and the other ??? Avocado (sorry can't remember name).  I used the same recipe for HCP that I used on my ceramic tiles (read more here) you can get the recipe from here. 

The Caramel HCP went on as the base coat and the Avocado 2nd coat.  Initially I wanted to distress the vanity, but I had second thoughts and decided to just distress the stenciling instead.  However, some of the Caramel can be seen through in certain areas.

raised stenciling

avocado vanity with raised stenciling

The doors

raised stenciling

raised stenciling on bathroom vanity

My initial thought was to wax, but knowing this will get lots of banging, so I instead went with poly (polyurethane) .  I waited a day or 2 before applying the poly and applied 4 or 5 coats.  From my experience poly is very durable and can take a lot of banging I haven't had very much experience with wax and didn't want to take any chances.

For my faucet I decided on a this 

raised stenciling on bathroom vanity

Vanity Before

Vanity After

raised stenciling on bathroom vanity

I thought this was a big improvement.  Unfortunately, I didn't have the same luck with my tub.    

This was my bath faucet

I really wanted something fancy like my sink, but this was all I could find (boring chrome)

Anyways, to make a long story short, I opted to spray paint my bath faucets instead.  The plumber was afraid to take them off for fear that he might damage them, so I had to spray paint them while they were still on the wall.  All I could think about was I had just painted my tiles (sob).  

But I managed it and this is how they turned out!

spray painted shower head

spray painted bathtub fixtures / faucet

spray painted bathtub fixtures / faucet

spray painted bathtub faucet / fixtures.  

BEFORE

AFTER

spray painted bathroom fixtures / faucet

No, it's not Moen, it's paint, but it works for me!

Projects to Complete

• Paint the wall
• Paint the wall tiles
• Paint the vanity
• Frame the mirror
• Put caulking at base of tub
• Change light fixture & faucets
• Scrape soap off ceiling
• Change window treatment & accessories

I'm going to give myself a 1-2 day break, get some studying in, and then start working on that frame for my mirror; until then LET YOUR CREATIVITY FLOW!

Cookie Jar

When I became a mom my dream was to have a cookie jar on the kitchen counter for my son to sneak cookies out of...well that dream never materialized because my son hated cookies.  No matter how I tried, he refused to eat them. :(

Twenty-one years and still no cookie jar, well that is until I came across this

I know you're thinking, why now?   Well, I've been wearing lots of ponytails lately, and I needed something to put my ponytail accessories in, when I spotted this I thought it would be perfect for my needs.  Who says a cookie jar has to be for cookies...

I wasn't too sure how I wanted to paint it, but I knew I wanted something rustic.

I based coated using my homemade off white chalk paint,  and then afterwards painted it using metallic blue.  I later plastered it, leaving open spaces added streaks of cranberry for additional color, and then applied  raise stencils.   Here's what it looked like so far...

Although I liked it, I wanted something with color.  So, I then played around with more paint to get the look I wanted ...

So, 21 years later, after the birth of my son, I finally got my cookie jar.  It's  not on my kitchen counter and yeah, it's a little rustic and a little old world, but it's a cookie jar! 

I guess this proves, it's never too late to LET YOUR CREATIVITY FLOW!

Raised Stenciling

I had several queries about raised stenciling when I featured my shoe box on my earlier blog. Raise stenciling is one of the easiest ways to transform something from plain & drabby to creative & elegant!  Here's some stuff I stenciled over the years.

A tree on my bedroom wall

A simple stool

If you want to give this a shot, here's what you'll need to get started

• Ready made Compound (or you can use wood filler)
• Stencil
• Flat end trowel

1st place your stencil where you want your design.

2nd take a little compound and smear it lightly and evenly over the stencil, be sure to hold your stencil firmly to prevent it from moving.

3rd lift your stencil at the edge being careful not to disturb the compound beneath

That's it!

If you have a peak in your design and you don't want it there (I generally like the high's and low's)  you can wait until it dry and sand it, or while the design is still wet you can use a toothpick to pat it down (you got to be gentle); you can also use a wet Q-tip to clean up the edges.

The best part about raised stenciling, if you don't like it you can scrape it up and redo it!

If you want to create more depth lay it heavy.

You can add paint to the compound if you want color, but be careful not to add too much or it might become runny and your design won't hold.  Also, if you add paint to your compound when it dries the color will be 1 - 2 shades lighter.

Raise stenciling your wall can be lovely - here's my foyer I painted

I also did a Stack Stone on my bedroom wall - this was laid heavy to give the appearance of stone.

And here's a Willow tree stenciled on my Living Room wall

Each leaf was hand painted

Once you get started, I'm sure you're going to have fun...

 If you decide to give this a shot send me a line and let me know.  So, go ahead and LET YOUR CREATIVITY FLOW!