My New Vanity

Introducing my latest furniture makeover: a desk-turned-vanity and a chair.

In the past I've used the upstairs powder room to get ready in the morning. It has a cute little vanity up there that's perfect for holding my makeup and hair dryer. Unfortunately, the temperature is a bit of a problem. In the summer, it's too hot to use a hair dryer without sweating my makeup off, and in the winter it's pretty cold for sitting up there in my bathrobe.

My solution? This new setup downstairs in the guest room.

I bought the desk at Salvation Army back when Chris and I were living in our apartment. It was cream colored with gold trim. I had painted it pink and added decorative paper to the drawer fronts. Then I grew out of that style and tried to sell it in our last garage sale without luck. So it's been sitting in our garage for the last year. And then I put two and two together ...

I painted the whole desk flat white (leftover from the powder room walls) and spray painted the bottom section gold. I saw this style online and loved the "gold dipped" look. I was unsure about painting the hardware white since it was kind of pretty, but I think the all-white look is really nice and still ornate enough.

The chair was purchased at a garage sale years ago for about $3. I kept in the apartment and then the house for a while, then moved it out to our patio table.

It ended up being a pain to rehabilitate it for the house again, but totally worth it. I had to wash the cushion and remove the old fabric. Then I had to sand and wash everything. The new purple fabric for the cushion is actually a skirt from Thrifty Shopper.

I definitely made a mistake with this chair at first though. I thought a shade of purple that's darker than the guest room walls would look nice on the chair. So when I got a coupon for a free test pot of paint from Lowe's, I jumped on one of their new fall colors.

But once it was on the chair ...

I just wasn't digging it. Luckily, I knew enough to admit that I had made a mistake, so I stopped painting and waited for the purple paint to dry so I could try something else. As I was walking away, I noticed that the stripes on the side were actually kind of cute.

Just not in purple. So out came the gold spray paint, which I used on just the sides of the back panel and down the sides of the back legs.

Then I went over everything else in the same white I used on the desk. It wasn't too hard to keep a straight line since it was along the edges.

It's a subtle effect, but I think it ties the chair and the vanity together nicely.

I think it turned out pretty nicely because the cats have been fighting over who gets to sleep on the new chair cushion. They are sitting on it constantly. Pretty high compliments, huh?

I still need to get a bigger mirror to hang over the desk, since the one that's there now is a little small and still off center ... Maybe I can find one with a big frame I can paint dark purple to match the chair cushion? Or gold to match the desk and chair? Or no frame at all for a sleek look? Any votes or suggestions?