Totally Transformed: Updating An Old Bathroom Vanity

Transform an old, dated bathroom vanity with a makeover and turn it into a modern piece with a little paint and a few inexpensive accents.

It's easier than you think to customize it and create your dream bathroom in the process.


Way back in April, we started renovating our bathroom.

While the room is basically finished and the kids are back to destroying using it, it's not ready for a final reveal.

Update: It's ready- here's the reveal! 

I'm still collecting accessories and putting on the finishing touches. However, what I am ready to show you is my totally transformed bathroom vanity.

You'd never, ever guess that it was the same one that came with the house if I didn't tell you.

I'm pretty shocked myself.

When we started this project, we weren't really thinking about replacing the vanity.

Truthfully, we weren't really thinking about replacing anything, but that's another story.

The bathroom vanity came with the house. Over the years, it's served us well. However.

It was a boring, dated, stock piece and it was decades old, definite cons, but that also meant it was solid wood...and today, most pieces are not.

Plus, it fit our plumbing set up, had tons of storage and it was free. All pros.


I still wasn't convinced.

It took a lot of consideration, dreaming and shopping in stores and online, where I couldn't find anything that was much better, before I decided to stick with what we had and perform a magical makeover.

To be honest, I wasn't 100% convinced that it was going to end well.

I'll let you be the judge.


We started with this.

A whitewashed wooden vanity, that we had gel stained in a darker color years ago. It had an aged appearance, on purpose, but I was done with the dark wood.


I either wanted a lighter look or a different wood, which would involve stripping, sanding and staining- no thank you. Since, painting was much, much easier, that's the route we chose.

The doors and drawers were removed and the priming and painting began.

We started using the same color as the walls, but it was too stark, so we switched to Silver Satin from Benjamin Moore.

It was perfect, still very white, but warmer and believe it or not, even with "silver" in its name, it was not gray.


Now painting is all well and good, but I knew that if was going for a completely different look, that wasn't going to do it.

The devil - or the magic, as someone recently told me - is in the details. And that's where my attention turned next.

We'd had these old crib finials floating around the house since the kids were small.

The crib is long gone, but for some reason we held on to these.

I stumbled across them mid-renovation and knew they'd be the perfect little faux legs for my vanity.


I painted them and then my husband amended the piece so they'd screw into the bottom of the vanity.

They don't provide any support, but they totally changed the lines of that character-less frame.


Next, my attention was focused on the hardware.

At first I wasn't sure what I wanted, but the way this story worked out, I know I made the right choice.

I had spent a lot of time on Pinterest and Etsy looking for something that would make me swoon and I found it in vintage style drop ring pulls.


I felt it in my gut that these would be best. Unfortunately I could only locate them from a seller in China and it would take weeks for delivery. Grrr.

Well, before I put them in my cart, I called my friend Susan from Homeroad, she is a master of DIY and knows the local antique market well.

She sent me to a shop where I inquired about the ring pulls, but they didn't have them. We looked in bins and drawers and jars of treasures for a good long time.

However, they told me, if you find something on a piece of furniture that you like, we may be able to take it off and sell it to you.

Hmm. It was a generous offer, but it was also a long shot, especially since I needed six of them, but lo and behold, the minute I turned around there was an antique dresser with six of them right behind me.

They were perfect!

The shop owner was happy to remove them and I literally skipped out of that store with my bag of treasure.

Of course, they were brass and I was looking for white, but that wasn't anything a little spray paint couldn't fix.


We, and when I say we, I mean my husband, used two different hues in light coats to get the right color and look for my intentionally aged piece.

See? Meant to be, right?


Once the hardware was in, I turned my attention to the drawers and cabinet.

They were just too bland. To remedy that, I ordered some contact paper online in an old fashioned rose print and got to work.


It was an inexpensive and simple task that took me less than a half an hour to complete, yet the results were very dramatic.

This makeover was coming together nicely.


And then we hit a wall. Well, I did anyway. The impasse?

It was the countertop. All along I had thought we'd either go for a dark wood vanity with a white counter or a white vanity with a dark counter.

Now that it was decision time, I was frozen.

What I really wanted was wood. Impractical? You bet. Gorgeous? Mmhmm.

A warm wood grain top would be the icing on this decorative cake, but they were pricey and nobody here wanted to build me one.

Until he did.

My knight in shining DIY armor constructed this amazing wooden countertop from supplies we grabbed at Home Depot and basically whipped it up in a weekend.


With that last design wrinkle ironed out, my vanity makeover was complete.

This old, boring, square, 1980's bathroom cabinet had been totally and completely transformed, thrown back in time, into a charming cottage style treasure that fits my 1920's bungalow perfectly.

A far cry from where we started. (Take a peek at the entire makeover!!)


It took me a while to let the kids use it, but they've moved in now and it's holding up well.

They love the fact that the sink has been centered over the cabinet, which gives them room to work in there...make up, hair dryers, etc.

It just makes more sense.


Of course, I absolutely adore the look.

I've always been a form over function girl.

But it's nice when I'm able to get both.

And when it comes my way for less than $100?

I'd say it was a success.

How about you?