Antique Vanity Dressing Table Makeover

I've been making progress on my daughter's new tranquil teen girl's room. Actually she calls the style "chill," which I will admit was hard for me to grasp at first. So I've been letting her make a lot of the decisions for this makeover, but guiding her along the way so it all works. One of the things that we thought would really add a lot of function to her room was a dressing table. She shares the bathroom with her brothers, so having a space of her own will be helpful in the mornings especially. My Mom gave me her childhood antique vanity dressing table a few years ago and I have been using it as a small desk.  My daughter is excited to have a piece of her grandmother's history, and also that it will be updated to her style.  

My Mom gave us her permission to paint the dressing table. It was actually already painted an orangey yellow color by someone years ago. And then there was a brown paint drybrushed on it to make it look like wood. 

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My daughter wanted a palette of white and gray with some lavender, so we decided on lavender Waverly chalk paint. Budget is big factor in this project because it's part of the $100 Room Challenge, hosted by Erin of Lemons, Lavender, and Laundry, which means we are doing this entire room for $100! So budget is the main reason I picked this paint.  It is so inexpensive! You can see all of the colors the paint comes in here.

Here are the steps for this antique vanity dressing table makeover:

1. Sand.  Because the current paint had such heavy brush marks, I decided to sand the top so I could ensure a smooth finish.  I didn't sand the rest of the table though.  This wouldn't have been necessary usually with chalk paint and it may not have been this time, I just didn't want to take a chance and have to start over if it wasn't right.

2.  Paint.  It took two coats of chalk paint to get complete coverage.

3.  Finish.  I gave the top two coats of water based matte Polycrylic, which I always have on hand.  I used Waverly clear wax on the rest of the pieces.  I don't like how waxed table tops hold up compared to those I've used Polycrylic on.  I've had newsprint transfer into the wax and cups make bad marks.  The Polycrylic just holds up better than wax for table tops in my opinion.

Materials I used:

Sander (this is my favorite one)

Sandpaper

Chalk and Wax paint brushes (these are great!)

Waverly chalk paint
Waverly clear wax
Polycrylic in matte finish

I also painted a mirror and a stool from my stash (hoard ;) of project pieces to complete the dressing table set.

My Tip: To keep from taping the mirror off, slide paper between the mirror and the frame.  If it's tight, push down slightly on the mirror and pull up on the frame a little and it may give you a little more room to slide the paper in.

I made a new DIY No Sew Bench Seat Cushion Using a Bed Pillow Upcycle for nearly free for the bench.  You can read how I did it here.

And here's the complete dressing table set all together!

Since I'm linking up with the $100 Room Challenge for this project, here are lots of creative projects from other bloggers making over rooms! 

An InLinkz Link-up

Thanks for stopping by!