Guess what? I'm finally done my weekly trips to Ann Arbor! Made the flight from DTW to BOS for the last time (for a while, at least) on Friday afternoon. I was so excited to return home and relax for the rest of the day, but was met with an even bigger surprise - Adam had arranged to work from home so he was there to meet me. This worked out really well too, since we had a large freight shipment coming in that day... the new shower door! I won't get to that yet in this post, but coming soon.
6// Painting the vanity
We decided to keep the old vanity base, but to spruce it up with a fresh coat of paint, some caulking to fill in cracks / seams, and new cabinet handles. Here's what we were dealing with before:
I pulled the cabinets off to fill in cracks / seams, repair the pieces in need, and paint it all.
While the rest of the bathroom was in surgery, I added the new cabinet handles we had picked. I had to drill a new hole, and filled in the old one with caulking before painting.
7// Choosing a vanity top
In the midst of all the work mentioned above and in our previous post, I had been doing tons of research on vanity top options. The plan was to
keep and repaint the base but get a new vanity top, sink, faucet, etc. to
replace old one (note the discolored top, gross caulking, and drop-in sink):
One
of the main challenges was finding the right size in a nice material at a good price
point, since we have a built-in unit. The best option turned out to be
custom vanity tops by St. Paul, ordered through Home Depot. We went to the store to scope the samples out:
The most
affordable options for a custom vanity top were engineered composite. Of these, I liked some of the
simpler patterns best. They fit in with the clean, high-contrast
vision, and also looked more intentional than fake granite/marble/quartz. We were gravitating towards the pure and simple white.
Home Depot / St. Paul has an online custom vanity top designer, where you can set the dimensions, pick a material and a sink...
...as well as sink location, faucet type (center / 4" spread / 8" spread), edge profile, and back & side splashes.
After lots of agonizing, we pulled the trigger on the white vanity top with a rectangular undermount sink, 8" spread faucet, and square edge profile for the contemporary look. After about 2 weeks it arrived at our home in it's shiny (upside down) new glory:
And it sat on our living room floor like this for a while as we got some other things done.
8// Installing a sconce
In the previous post, we got to the point of picking the 4-light version of the sconce my dad was kind enough to offer us. Upon arrival, we did a few quick checks of dimensions. We were lucky enough to have 2 of the main pre-drilled holes on the mounting plate align perfectly with the junction boxes. I added drywall studs on the outside for extra security (the blue ones below)
We got the mounting plate up pretty quickly, with 2 screws into the junction boxes and 2 into the drywall studs on the outside.
Finally, we wired and secured the sconce, added the shades, and installed our 23w fluorescent bulbs. Then we were here:
Isn't she beautiful?? As a reminder, here's what we had before:
And the after:
We'll pick up again next time with some plumbing!
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