Creating a French Inspired Vanity

It is such a challenge to start with a piece of furniture that is structurally sound, functional and has a pleasing shape but is aesthetically unpleasing and create a piece of art furniture that is timeless and lovely. That was my goal as I upcycled this vanity table for our own use. It does “change the game” a bit if we don’t intend to sell a particular piece but to keep it for our own use as we can choose colors and styles that perhaps wouldn’t be as successful on a commercial market but that we love.

This piece of furniture has been in our master bathroom for years.

We have owned it for so long that I honestly don’t remember where we got it from or what we paid for it but I am sure that it wasn’t expensive. A previous owner did a poor job of refinishing the piece and the wood was not in wonderful shape. It was rather weak grained and had splotchy color. Additionally there were lots of watermarks, scratches and dents so the decision to paint this was a “no-brainer”.

Cathy and I had a great time talking about the piece and how we would use it. We decided that vanity table would remain in our master bath and that we would base the piece in a Medium White color with a washed border of toned green.

Here it is mid-transformation:

We also decided that I would paint the lovely florals that we both love but that we would go for a very soft, French look. If I am painting a piece of art furniture to sell I will usually use much stronger, contrasting color as that look is generally more popular to the buying public. However, we enjoy softer color with less contrast. This soft look is achieved by painting the flowers on a wet background allowing all of the color to soften as it contacts the wet paint. I also increased the French feel of the piece by adding simple scrolls and cross hatching. The only other design decision that we made was to have the floral design follow the scalloped contour of the piece allowing the curve of the floral painting to follow the curve of the vanity table. This produces a pleasing and artistic flow to the piece.

Here is the finished product. There are  a lot of photos and the vanity is in place, in the bathroom, under a painting I recently finished and framed. I hope you enjoy it.

Thanks for visiting. Please stop by again soon.

Until next time,

Paul

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