Ten June: {DIY} Custom Bathroom Vanity

While I'm out loving on my brand new baby boy, I hope you enjoy this series: my favorite DIY rerun posts! Learn more about the series here and check out some of the previous posts here.

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David and I are nearing home plate with our master bathroom renovation. We tackled some major end-of-the-road projects over the weekend (like running water... as in, I can brush my teeth in there! This is finally happening!). And one project that we can finally cross off of our list is the vanity.

We installed the bathroom vanity four times. I told you all about the first install here, with the Pottery Barn vanity that I wanted for about two years and then fell madly out of love with as soon as it hit our doorstep. Takes two, three and four all occurred with the Home Depot vanity I mentioned last week. Let me backtrack.

After the Pottery Barn vanity snafu, David and I decided to buy a white builder-grade vanity (approximately $300) from Home Depot and dress it up to suit our fancy. Here she is right out of the box.

I pulled our samples from various other parts of the room and realized that we needed a kick of a darker color to tie the look together. David's genius idea- let's paint the vanity a dark, charcoal gray!

And dark, charcoal gray she went!

Using the laminate painting tutorial I described in my entryway shelf project, I primed the vanity with Zinsser and then layered it with a few coats of Martha Stewart's Cement Gray. I'm in love.

But unfortunately we still had to reinstall this vanity... thus vanity install attempts two, three and four!

Because of the nature of the open scheme of our first PB vanity choice, we had the plumbers fix the pipes so that they came up from the floor instead of from the wall (so they could be easily covered and not hanging out all over the place). Of course, we didn't end up choosing the open vanity option, so that was all for naught. Oh well. No harm, right? Ahem... as David and I ~~attempted~~ worked to install the new Home Depot vanity, we realized that it couldn't fit over the piping as it was laid out. Road block. So we had to get some help (in the form of our local handyman) to move the vanity over so that it fit over the pipes...which meant moving the matching electrical sockets and lighting as well. I know- it's like one of those "if you give a mouse a cookie" scenarios! Unfortunately it took our guy two attempts to install the vanity so that it's just perfect, rounding out four full (and final!) attempts at getting this bad boy in.

But oh, is it worth it.

The details are my favorite part.

Some of you guessed that I bought knobs for the vanity at the Hobby Lobby sale that I mentioned last week. While I did shop the sale for vintage-looking glass knobs (the direction I knew I wanted to go for some extra glam), the HL glass knobs were actually a tad bit bigger than we wanted on the vanity. The glass knobs I ended up choosing here are from Home Depot (but more on the HL knob project soon!).

I'm absolutely in love with the soft runner bath mat, silver jewelry tray and silver "mint julep" cup/vase/anything we want it to be that I found at Marshalls.

All of our fixtures in the room are a shiny chrome (so shiny you can see me taking a picture!).

They are also from Home Depot- the "Banbury" by Moen line.

This week is the install of the mirrors above the vanity, but for now we're using an extra mirror from around the house. Gotta say cheese while I'm brushing my teeth, right?

I'm absolutely in love with the way it turned out- even if it took four attempts. Every time I walk by the bathroom, I run and grab David- "Babe! Seriously, look how good it looks!" I'm a happy camper.

Can't you tell?