Flea Market Vanity and the Rest

Now that we’ve shown you the play by play on the important stuff, we can show you the fun (and easy!) details that really bring the room together.

But before I get to that, let’s revisit the original bathroom renovation list and see how much we’ve accomplished/decided against:

  • Remove sink cabinet and replace with pretty piece of furniture. (about to tell you about this one)
  • Add vessel sink and single-hole faucet. (about to tell you about this one)
  • Tile shower/tub area (details here)
  • Tile floor (details here)
  • Hang beadboard on bottom half of the walls (change of plans, details here)
  • Remove wall paper and paint top half of the walls (change of plans, details here)
  • Install sconces in vanity area (about to tell you about this one)
  • Add floor vent (decided we didn’t really need this right now)
  • Replace tub/shower fixtures (details here)
  • Hang new mirror for vanity (about to tell you about this one)
  • Remove doors on linen closet and paint to look like built-in shelves (in progress)
  • Hang curtain(s) in window
And a few things that got left off the list:
  • Replace towel racks and such, shower curtain and rod, and light fixture (about to tell you about this one)
  • Paint ceiling 
  • Replace bath mat (about to tell you about this one)
  • Replace baseboards, molding, and trim (in progress)
  • Hang artwork on the walls and add other decorative elements
  • Replace door jamb

Boy am I glad we’re almost done with everything. It’s been a whirlwind of a month, and I’m happy it’s finally time to share the little details with you. First up is our flea market find, the vanity.

Oh, but just to tease you for a second, I’ll tell you the back story. We started here with this monstrous, custom-built sink cabinet that took up a good half of the room (or seemed to) and these hideous lights and medicine cabinet.

And the gas heater on the wall (you can sort of see it to the left of the sink) was just more unused space, especially because we rarely even turned it on.

We weren’t quite sure what we wanted to replace the sink cabinet with, but we knew we wanted it to be more furniture-like and less sink-cabinet-like, and we knew that we wanted it to open up the space and not appear to take up over half the floor.

There’s a pretty good flea market/consignment shop near Meridian, Mississippi, so we headed there with big plans to find some gorgeous antique that just needed a little TLC (without proper measurements, I might add). Well, we found lots of items that fit this bill, but everything was either too big, too expensive, or too in need of TLC (i.e., dilapidated). But then we stumbled upon this little table piled high with glassware and other typical flea market wares. Lacking the aforementioned proper measurements, we weren’t exactly sure how it would fit in the room. For future reference, always measure before you drive several hours to furniture shop, or before you furniture shop at all.

But back to the table. We weren’t quite sure about it, but it was our best option. So we took the plunge and bought it, thinking we could surely find another place for it in the house if it turned out not to work in the bathroom. At only $90, it was certainly a steal.

Once we got it home, we knew it was perfect. Picture me doing a happy dance, and Ed breathing a sigh of relief we didn’t have to go shopping for something else.

Then we started searching for a vessel sink. We wanted something white that wasn’t too contemporary. We couldn’t find anything locally in our budget, so we went to Overstock and snagged this beauty for $102. We also found this faucet for $129 and ordered it as well.

Isn’t it just so pretty? I think so.

For the details: That’s an old cast iron sewing machine bottom and pine planks for the top. All we had to do was dust it off, sand it down, and polyurethane it for waterproofing. Super simple. And it fit both requirements we had for the vanity. The open base and narrower counter keep it from dominating the room. We did lose a lot of storage by ditching the old cabinet, but we’ve got big plans to utilize open shelving on the walls and the old cabinet area to take away the sting.

I may as well tell you we scrapped the sconces idea. After learning that we would have to double our order for beadboard, we decided to save money and not have an electrician run wires for sconces. And one light fixture is cheaper than two, so we saved a few bucks there as well. I won’t lie, I was bummed at the time, but now I couldn’t be happier with the result.

The mirror was another consignment shop deal. When I found it, the frame was gold and looked a little grandmotherly, but at $34, it was too cheap not to consider. After thinking on it for a day or so, I went back and bought the mirror and a can of spray paint and set to work.

I couldn’t remove the frame without doing damage to the mirror, so I opted for this very professional technique.

I covered it in construction paper I found in a drawer, propped it on a trash bag on the back deck, and started spraying.

It was late and freezing outside, so it wasn’t the best spray-painting conditions, but it worked. We used Rust-Oleum’s Hammered Spray in Dark Bronze. It looks a little more gray than bronze to me, but it fits in the room perfectly.

We found the light fixture at Lowe’s for $49. Then we snagged a lamp from the guest room (another consignment find a long time ago) and reused some bath accessories we already had. When we got married (back in 2008), we registered for these bath accessories, and now we finally have the perfect bathroom for them!

We did buy a soap dish at Tuesday Morning for $5, but we had everything else already on hand.

Moving right along to the shower area. We snagged the shower curtain from our second bath. We found it at Lowe’s a few years ago, but I wasn’t able to find it on my last trip there, so it must be discontinued. I did find a snazzy shower caddy to match all our oil-rubbed bronze in there though. We opted for this shower caddy, which cost about $30.

We bought our shower fixtures on Overstock for a pretty serious steal (details here).

For the rest of the room, we added two towel racks, two hooks, and a toilet paper holder, all from Lowe’s and the allen + roth Forsyth collection and a shower rod and hooks and a bath mat found at Tuesday Morning. For these items, we spent about $130.

So that’s where we are folks. Right now, we’re working on converting the old cabinets to open shelving, finishing up the baseboards, and looking for artwork. We’re nearing the end!

If you want to see the bathroom remodel from the beginning, check out demo, cement board installation, hanging and painting beadboard, tiling the shower, and tiling the floor.

If you love any of the elements we used for the vanity or shower, head on over to our Amazon store where we’ve tracked down the fixtures and lookalikes for you.

 

Post linked up at One Project Closer’s DIY Link It Up #1.

 

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Old Turntables New Folks

We’re pretty big into music around here, and we’re pretty old-school-type audiophiles. We have an iPod (one of the old iPod minis that Kristen got when she bought a Mac about 6-7 years ago) that we don’t really use and we occasionally hook up the computer to our stereo. Most of our music is on CDs, tapes (me mostly), and vinyl. We have lots of vinyl (courtesy of various former grad school teachers who wanted to unload their collections. I’d say a good half of the records we have are in closets because we just don’t have enough shelving for them all (which we’ll hopefully fix in the near future when I build a stereo cabinet). You can see our somewhat sad stereo table here. The point being, we listen to lots of vinyl, some old and some new. We’ve had a USB turntable for a couple of years that works pretty well considering how inexpensive it was and how ugly it is.

Pretty much since we got the USB TT, I’ve been planning on getting a good quality, vintage TT. Since we don’t live in a big city, or really near one, most of my vintage audio shopping happens on eBay. You can imagine the problems involved, but you won’t have to, I’m going to tell you all about them.

My search for a vintage TT has so far been pretty sad. As of this writing, I have 4 TTs here at the house, only one of which gets used. (This is where you start to think I’m a little off. Maybe I am. Actually, I am a little off, partly foolish, and completely impatient. And so I now have 4 TTs) The problem has been that the TTs I’ve gotten on eBay have arrived with various degrees of problems that either weren’t explained in the listings or I didn’t know to look for them before I won the auctions.

Here’s the rundown on the TTs I’ve bought, what’s keeping me from using them, and what I know now to look out for when I (obviously) buy the next one.

1. Sansui SR 212

This TT I bought about a year ago and is, according to audiophile forums, a pretty decent 70′s Japanese TT. It has a suspended platform for the platter that is supposed to help keep the records from skipping if the TT is jostled. It’s a belt driven TT, and it has a counterweight on a string substituting for the little anti-skate dial usually found next to the tonearm (although the TT I got didn’t come with this counterweight). Plus it looks bitchin’ with its fake wood base.

The Problem: When I set this TT up and tried out a record, the speed was off. The record played noticeably slower than it should have (I figured out that it spun at about 31-32 rpms instead of 33, which turns out to make a big difference). The belt was supposedly new, and I oiled the parts that needed oiling, and still 31 rpms. Something on the inside just isn’t getting the speed right. Trying to find someone locally who understands this problem and can actually fix it has been impossible so far.

2. Sanyo TP 727

I picked this TT up about a month or so ago, and when it came in, everything seemed great. It played at the right speed and it sounded good. Until it got a couple of tracks in and the needle and cartridge (the part the needle is attached to) started to drag on the record.

The Problem: I realized that the tonearm was missing its counterweight. Clear as day and I didn’t even notice. Trying to find a counterweight for this particular model has also, so far, been impossible. So I strung up the counterweight from the USB TT and it seems to play fine (even though I know this is not very good for my records).

3. Yamaha YP D6

The most recent TT I bought I just knew would be the one that worked. The listing seemed pretty sound, it clearly had the counterweight, and it was reported to play great. Also, it has the nice fake wood base I like so much.Then I got it set up and Kristen noticed that as the records played, the platter (where the record actually sits) kind of wobbled.

The Problem: Come to find out, the platter is warped slightly, and the spool that the platter sits on is crooked. So technically it plays the records, but there’s a bump every revolution that messes with the sound and probably puts more pressure on the needle than it should have. Bad things.

Here’s what I’ll be looking for the next time I buy a vintage TT. First, I’ll make sure that it has all the parts (e.g., counterweights) that is should have. Then, I’ll make sure to ask the seller questions about the playing speed, if the belt is new, and if the platter spins level. Also, and I learned this after the first TT, I’ll make sure to only buy a TT that can be returned. The Sansui was sold as-is, the Sanyo I could have returned, but apparently it cost more to ship it than I payed for it, so the seller just told me to get rid of it and gave me my money back. The Yamaha is due to be shipped back this week.

If you’re looking to get an old TT, and are looking on eBay, that’s awesome. But you should be a much more inquisitive and patient to make sure you get one that’s worth the money and actually works. (Remember that I’m basically Veruca Salt when it comes to buying these things. That’s right, I’m not above dropping a Willy Wonka reference.)

I’ll let you know how the next TT works out–it shouldn’t be too long now.

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