I Bought Something Off Craigslist & Lived To Tell The Tale

That’s right folks, we bought a piece of furniture that we found via Craigslist and…GASP…lived!  Can you believe that we were Craigslist virgins and that this was our first find?  It’s not that I haven’t been trying.  I just keep getting rejected!  It’s like the dating world all over again!  Boy am I glad that I’m married…even if it’s to Colby…um….I mean…uh…I love you baby!  There have been couch finds and chairs and other dressers, but every time I find something that I absolutely love and contact the seller…sold.  Like clock work.  So you can just imagine my excitement when I found the world’s most amazing buffet AND scored it.  Booyah!

Oh but we’re not planning to use it as a buffet.  Nope.  We’ve got bigger plans for this gal…like turning it into a bathroom vanity.  Look for the blue moon folks, the nearly three year search for the perfect sized dresser/buffet turned bathroom vanity is over!  Or shall I say, OVAH like a real Maine-ah!

It’s not like we haven’t been actively looking for a new bathroom vanity, we just haven’t found something that we loved yet, and more importantly, was the right size.  We have a very specific sized alcove in our bathroom for a vanity and we kept running into Goldilocks situations…this one’s too wide, this one’s too tall, this one is too deep….but now this one is just right.

And the $75 price tag seemed fitting for the buffet since this guy is beefy!  It’s pretty solid wood, super heavy, and a decently made piece.  It does have a few gouges and dings, but that’s what gives it character.  The buffet does have quality dove tail joints:

A pair of drawers…perfect for storage (except we will have to modify them a bit to make room for the sink):

and TONS of concealed storage space in the cabinet area and in the lower drawer:

We’re even thinking of adding a little bit more storage on the inside of the doors.  Like a little shelf to hold extra toothpaste or shampoo, or some glass storage jars for Q-tips and cotton balls.  Oh the organizational possibilities!  It’s got me all kinds of jazzed up like JT for Britney circa 1999.

The buffet also came with some hardware but we’re definitely not keeping it.  I’m sure for some people, the crystal like knobs totally melt their butter, but they’re just not for me.  I’m thinking something Anthro-like, with a little color in them.  Besides…about half of them are broken anyway.

The second we brought home the buffet/vanity, I started the great debate.  You know…the stain vs. paint debate.  I decided to wait it out and let the buffet speak to me, or at least clean it up first and see how it looks all shiny and new like.  So I whipped out an old tried and true method for cleaning up old furniture…the Magic Eraser/vinegar combo.

The vinegar works like a dream to get the musty smell out of wooden furniture and nothing cleans quite like a Magic Eraser.  When we first moved into our house, we inherited a pair of cabinets (one being the dining room china cabinet that we painted and put on casters to make a hidden closet door out of it).  The vinegar/Magic Eraser combo was the only thing that got the I’ve-been-sitting-cooped-up-in-this-house-without-air-for-years smell.  Since the vanity had a stink going on and was pretty dingy, I gave her a good rub down…and DESTROYED three Magic Erasers.  I think the vanity was dirty!

And voila!  She shines!  It’s like giving the piece a brand new finish.

Here’s a better look at the before cleaning (on the left) and the after cleaning (on the right).

I promise I didn’t Photoshop that.  The Magic Erasers/vinegar brought out the stain color and revealed alot of red undertones.  Speaking of undertones, prior to cleaning up the vanity I was leaning towards the “wood tones” corner of the ring.  But after cleaning it up, I totally ran to the “painting” corner in the heavy weight fight of paint vs. stain.  There’s a recurring theme in our house of cool tones and blue hues.  I just didn’t see the redness of the vanity really fitting in well.  Benjamin Moore paint swatches…here I come!

And I know Colby and I have been all gung-ho, team Edward guest-bedroom-finishing lately, but we’re totally switching gears and working on the bathroom for awhile.  That’s what calling off the three year search for a vanity will do to you.  Make you drop all current projects in lieu of FINALLY finishing the bathroom.  So as I type, we’ve demoed out the old vanity and started priming the vanity.  Our goal is to finish repairing the walls in the vanity nook, painting the vanity, and installing it before it starts to feel normal to brush our teeth in the tub every night.

Pssst…So now that you know what we’ll be up to this weekend, what about you guys?  Do you have any weekend plans?  Any painting projects?  I was working on priming parts of the vanity last night, while Colby was away on business, and totally dunked the end of my pony tail in the gallon of primer….DOH!  I should never be left alone without adult supervision!