Restoration Hardware Look Archives - The Weekend Country Girl

The end is near on the bathroom remodel. I can almost hear angels singing! I am not sure why, but this project has been a rough one. I think we are just tired. And old.

By far my favorite thing about the bathroom is the dresser we bought that I repurposed into a bathroom vanity. I love the Restoration Hardware look of the refinished wood, I like the wood top- that we have covered with a million coats of marine varnish to protect it from water, I now have better storage in the vanity, and I like that it looks like furniture in the bathroom.

It went from looking like this:

to this beauty:

It was tough finding a solid wood dresser that was 72 inches long. I paid too much for it ($200.00), but after a month of searching this one spoke to me.

As hard as getting the dresser to look the way I wanted was, getting it to function as a bathroom vanity has been more of a challenge. There just are no instructions for how to make plumbing work for a piece that was never designed to have pipes run through it. Every one is different. We did look at these websites for ideas:

Beneath My Heart

Domestic Imperfection

DIY

I could not find any that were crazy enough to put TWO sinks in a dresser. I think that should have given me a hint… but I am a stubborn sort of girl.

Hubby cut the holes in the top of the vanity for the sinks while I was at work one day. I was so excited with how they looked!

Step one was to remove the old vanity without destroying the plumbing. A rotozip took care of getting the back board cut out.

Step two was to get the new vanity in place. A 72 inch vanity will fit in a 72 inch opening with some sanding. It will fit in a 71 1/2 inch opening with a saw. We forgot to think about the 1/4 inch hardboard we installed on the two side walls. We also had to cut out a large section from the back to accommodate the plumbing and drain. Every sink is different, so it is my recommendation if you really want to use the area under your sink for drawers, get a drop in sink for the top of the dresser and make sure it is fairly shallow. We chose this beauty from Home Depot. They were less than $80.00 each, which was better than I expected.(They are no longer in stock.)

Step three is to move the dresser into place, drop in the sink and connect the plumbing. All the drawers will be out, we took a section of the back of the dresser off where the plumbing would go and even had to remove a few cross bars that will have to be reinstalled or reworked when we are finished.

Step four is to begin the process of fitting the drawers around the plumbing. Once again we looked online for how to do this and saw several potential plans:

HGTV (HGTV recommended dismantling the drawers. No, thank you.)

An Oregon Cottage (A more common sense approach.)

We opted to do a sort of modifed version of what An Oregon Cottage did. The bottom drawer just needed a cut out scoop on the very back. The middle and top drawers needed to be L shaped in order to miss the plumbing.

Here is what our dresser looked like inside once the drawers were cut out to go around the plumbing:

It isn’t pretty, but I have a ton more storage than before. I am going to get it all stained and sealed soon. I pinky promise.

We removed one drawer from the middle section to allow for taller items like cleaners.

Here is the finished product. I am so very happy with how it turned out. Enjoy.

The color is off in this shot but you can see the finished look.

This is the best shot of the dresser and the mirror together I can get in the narrow space. Love the pieces together. The light will change. I just have to find the right one.

The sinks look amazing.

You get the best representation of the finish on this shot.

We have the most amazing natural light in the bathroom. I love how it reflects around the room.

Thanks for putting up with my way too long bathroom reno. I hope you like the look as much as we do. I still have doorknob towel holders to add and a little touch up paint to do before we can call it DONE!

I hope you enjoy the look as much as we do and our struggles inspire you to try something out of the ordinary at your home.

Blessings,

Karen

I am sure that you are tired of hearing about my bathroom, and probably wondering why in the world it is taking so long. Well, my husband has been great about getting his part of the bathroom remodel done, but he has had to wait on me to get my parts done. I really want my bathroom to be more of a reflection of my rustic, vintage, eclectic, style and not something that could come straight off a showroom floor. Crazy, right? Almost everything we are adding has been customized. What can I say? I live in a beautiful suburban tract home. There are at least 80 homes in this master planned neighborhood that are a version of our floor plan. We were lucky that the original owners did spring for upgrades that some homes may not have, but they are all still options that other homes, some on my same street, may have. I really needed one room to look like me and not “upgrade 34 in plan 27”. As usual, I turned to Pinterest for inspiration and decided that I would:

Refinish an oak dresser for my sink vanity so that it resembled a Restoration Hardware finish. ( It took over a month to find the dresser I wanted. Then several weeks to perfect the finish- which I absolutely love.) (Click here to see the Pinterest dresser inspiration)
- So far:
  - The dresser is refinished. It looks amazing.
  - The sinks have arrived and the holes are cut in the top of the dresser. I love the square sinks we chose.
  - The wall has been painted, the board and batten has been installed, primed and painted.
  - The new vanity will have feet so Hubby has installed tile in the open spot where there was no tile installed before.
  - The outlets were moved to accommodate the board and batten.

Here it is being fit into the space. It literally fits like custom furniture. Hubby had to sand the edges because it was too tight after the bead oar was added.

Build shelving. ( I really wanted to do it all by myself. Hubby could have whipped it out in a couple of hours but it took me almost a whole day to get it done.) I really like the look. ( Click here to see the Pinterest shelf inspiration)

Before the Board and Batten After

Add a chandelier. Believe it or not, I bought the chandelier on clearance in March and it hung out in my seldom used garden tub for a while waiting for inspiration. I liked the shape and scale for the space but it had purple and green beads with a silver metal frame. I actually found the EXACT chandelier on Pinterest redone to look like wood and was thrilled. It took me several days to get it painted, stained and reassembled before could get the electrician to come and squeeze into our attic to run the wires. It is soooo very worth it. (You can see the Pinterest inspiration here.)

Add board and batten walls to the bathroom. Right now Hubby is 95% done with this project. He is down to the finish work that will happen after the vanity is installed. Thankfully the mirrors are done and waiting. (You can see the Pinterest inspiration here.)

Add some sort of fun towel holders. I settled on making this part of a door into a faux zinc hat rack that will hold towels for Hubby and for me.

In my crazy mind, I thought that I could get more done this summer. I did not figure in the toll that 10 hour work days takes on me or how much the heat and travel would slow everything down. I get home from work and turn into mush. It is frustrating to know you have projects waiting when you literally have no energy to get them done.

Still to do:

I want to add some sort of rustic art work in the bathroom or black and white photos. Still thinking on that one. ( Pinterest inspiration here.)

and possibly…maybe…if I can get the energy, I want to add reclaimed wood to the toilet closet in the form of an accent wall. (Pinterest Inspiration here.)

Tag: Restoration Hardware Look

Turning a Dresser into a Bathroom Vanity

Pulling from Pinterest to Personalize a Bathroom