Mary Beth's Place: The Vanity That Was Almost a Movie Star

Sunday, September 7, 2014

The Vanity That Was Almost a Movie Star

This was one of my most ambitious projects to date. The before and afters are amazing. I picked up this antique Victorian vanity from my friend. She was about to take it to the dump....well, we all know how I feel about that! So I rescued it and brought it home.

This is what I was dealing with:

Go ahead, pin it, I dare you!

In addition to it being used a tool repository by me, it was in really bad shape. The vanity was missing its mirror, the shelf on the top had missing drawers, there were only two out of eight casters that were intact, and it was really, really, grungy. Don't even get me started on the insides of the drawers. Yuck!

The veneer on the top was in such bad shape that it was beyond repair. My son helped me steam off the veneer, which was a very tedious, time-consuming process. Some pieces came off easily, and some needed extra steam and elbow grease, but the wood underneath was in pretty good condition. I painted the body in Annie Sloan Chalk Paint in Antoinette. Yummy pink!

I usually don't paint the insides of drawers, but after I couldn't get the really gross stains out, I primed and painted the drawers in Pure White. Then I spray-painted and sealed the original hardware and added little crystal knobs.

The mirror was mine from a dresser that I bought when I was a teenager. We currently use the dresser without the mirror, so I was happy to be able to repurpose the mirror!

I found a little stool and spray-painted it white and then covered the seat with ballet slipper pink silk. I used white tulle to make a tutu.

I was babysitting my parents' dog, Roxy, that week and she was not digging the ballerina/princess theme!

The interesting story is that I was contacted by an Indy film producer to use this vanity as a prop in a documentary about ballet dancers. I was really honored, but declined because (1) I'm not in the prop rental business and (2) the vanity had a 7:00 am casting call in LA and she didn't want to get up that early!