Biggest project so far: I re-did my bathroom!

First of all, let me say right now that I am addicted to staining every piece of wood that I can get my hands on. I have this strange obsession with dark stains; some of my favorites are black, espresso and cherry.

A couple of months ago, when I was living in my old apartment, I decided that I wanted to re-do my bathroom. Man, that bathroom was just awful. The walls were a very ugly grey color and terribly painted. The previous tenant created a drip effect with a type of paint lacquer, so the walls were extremely bumpy and uneven, too. I realized that I'd had enough and I couldn't take it anymore.

With the help of my awesome dad, we sanded the walls, covered up all of the holes with Spackle and painted the bathroom. We also re-caulked everything, from the tub to the radiator on the floor. It's amazing what a little bit of Spackle and paint can do for a room! We painted it a beautiful, very light tan color. We also replaced the old, dim, translucent bulbs with big, bright, transparent bulbs, which added a lot of radiance to such a teeny tiny bathroom!

In the shower area, there was plastic in place of tiles. The apartment was a converted garage, so I guess the landlords didn't want to put new tiles in the bathroom. In order to make the shower area look bigger and the ceiling look taller, I painted the top wall above the plastic white on one side.

You can still see the dripped lacquer underneath the paint because it was VERY difficult to sand away completely. But we did cover it up as much as we could. :)

The next thing I decided to do on my own was stain my bathroom cabinet. I was inspired by a pin on Pinterest and knew that I could do it myself, even though I was still new to the whole DIY thing.

That being said, I knew that I wanted a black bathroom cabinet and mirror instead of the light wood. So I went out and purchased black stain, tape and some paint brushes. I purchased Varathane Wood Stain in Ebony from Home Depot.

Preparation:

The first thing you want to do when you're staining/painting anything is cover everything! Use painter's tape and (my personal favorite) shower curtain liners from the dollar store to cover up your floors. If your cabinet has handles, remove them. You can also remove the doors and stain them separately, which makes the process easier.

Staining:

I only needed two coats of this stain. The first coat that I painted on, I wiped with a towel after of few minutes of drying time. This allowed the texture of the wood to really stick out. The second coat I painted on and did NOT wipe off. Some people prefer a third coat, but I didn't feel it was necessary. Overall, the process only took me between one and two hours to complete.

Before:

During:

Note the beautiful BEIGE walls! :P

After:

The craziest thing is that I didn't even change the handles. The black cabinet just makes them look so much brighter and more beautiful! 

I know this isn't really a 'tutorial,' but I want to inspire you guys to try new things, even if you're not "DIY saavy." I never thought I'd be staining a bathroom cabinet and mirror by myself, let alone do a good job! I'm proud of this work and am sad that I had to leave it behind, but new opportunities presented themselves and I had to move on. I'm sure that when I move into the new house with my future hubs, I will find lots of things to stain and paint. I'm super excited for it!

Don't just pin it; do it!

Thanks for reading, friends! Have a fabulous day!