Painting and Antiquing Bathroom Cabinets

Since my lovely husband finally decided to tile our downstairs bathroom, we also decided together it was time to just finish the project altogether.
 My job:  The cabinets and decor
 His Job: the plumbing and fixtures.

My mother in law recently redid all of her kitchen cabinets in this awesome antiqued white look and it really was a beautiful makeover.... so I am going to take some inspiration from her and do the bathroom vanity and mirror in an white antiqued look.

Here are some before pictures of the vanity before jumping in.

I washed them down, roughly sanded them, and took all of the doors/ drawers and hardware off.  I had picked out an off-whitesh color as the base and I got it in High Gloss paint specifically designed for Trim and Cabinets (High Gloss paint is easier to clean than other finish).  After one coat of paint the Vanity looked like this.  (Sorry for the bad photos... there is bad lighting in my basement)

And After the 2nd coat of paint...

After letting everything dry it was time to start adding the Stain to get that nice antique look.  My mother in law had mentioned to me that when she had added the stain that it absorbed very quickly and almost made it too antiqued for her liking (she even repainted a couple of cabinet doors because she added too much)  so.. I decided to practice a little on the back of the door.  

Now for the scary part... the front of the door and the drawers... and the actual vanity.  

I think they turned out rather nice.  I got a little nervous for a minute there and had definitely OVER antiqued a little... but had the idea to get my paint brush only "lightly" wet and kind of dry brush some paint over the really stained areas to get a look that I desired.  It turned out great!  I still have to apply a finish to the cabinets so the paint doesn't chip with wear and add some nice new hardware.  

Matt is going to finish this thing off by tiling a marble countertop for it and we have this nice Brushed Nickel basin sink we are going to put on top.  Stay tuned for more updates!  

Been a little preoccupied Lately...

So... I haven't posted on this blog in a Long Long time... mainly because I've started a new blog talking all about mine and Matt's little squish on the way... and secondly because we haven't done too much to our house since I got super sick with morning sickness and the last thing I wanted to do was do physical labor. But now that I'm more than half way through this pregnancy I've been having that nesting feeling urge in me.

Matt says I've gotten a little antsy and I'm constantly thinking of things I want/need done to the house. I've recently started making a list of things that need to get done before winter comes along with itching to completely tear down my kitchen and start all over (though I've come up with some more budget friendly ideas for that mess).

This last weekend I wanted to somehow tackle the mess of storage we had down in our basement pantry/laundry room and had recruited Matt to help.  Matt had his own idea of what he wanted to get done down there though.  Months ago he had ripped out all of the flooring, shower, vanity, and toilet from our small 3/4 bath downstairs.  I think he realized when we got down there to "organize" things that most of the stuff that needed to be put away were items related to that belated remodeling.

I started shuffling through the items in our pantry and Matt started laying tile in the bathroom.  What a relief!  I have been trying to get him to work on that project... especially since I think we need to get a spare bathroom/ guest bedroom worked out before our baby comes around.  It would be really nice to have a place for people to sleep if they... perhaps came to help out for a week or two.

Here are just a few pictures of the tile that Matt put down in the bathroom.  Its the same tile that we used in our upstairs bathroom... we had bought a little bit too much for that project so instead of bringing it back we decided to use it in the basement as well.  This almost used all of it up.

Now I think I am going to do what my lovely mother in law did to her bathroom and kitchen cabinets to the bathroom cabinet and vanity and paint it an off-white color and antique it.  Matt wants to create a marble tile countertop and then put one of those awesome basin sinks in.  I'm getting excited to see how nice this bathroom turns out to be.