Our Black Beauty

 

What feels like a really long time ago now, I had one of my dilemmas (which I tend to turn into major crises in my head, such as this one) over whether to DIY or not DIY our buffet that we're repurposing into a bathroom vanity.

Well, in the interests of having our newly tiled bathroom useable asap, we made the decision to bite the proverbial bullet, and paid a car repair man to spray not only the cabinet, but our $40 new old dining table as well. Total cost of the paint job, $600 for the two. Not cheap, but well and truly worth it, and a lot cheaper than buying a new vanity and a new dining table!

She is a definite black beauty now!

Because we had positioned the drain hole for the to-be basin centrally in the floor, we had to do a bit of reshuffling of supports at the base of the cabinet when we got it home.

Allie watched very carefully.

And then we hauled it into position along our black pinstripe tiled wall in the bathroom.

A few months earlier we had spotted this bowl at Bunnings for a very persuasive price (I can't remember what exactly, around $60 I think)...

We placed it carefully on top in pride of place...

And gave it a bright shiny new drain and some plumbing...

Then it was time for some new hardware. And this was where I had to splurge a bit.

These nice sturdy chrome pull handles for the drawers I bought off Ebay for $6.90 each plus postage of $10.65, making for a total of $38.25.

From an online shop called Restoration Hardware I bought two different sizes of these glass knobs, to correspond with the size of the doors. The large ones were $7.54 a pop, the smaller ones $6.35. Including shipping of $9.90, that added up to $51.10

So the new hardware cost us $89.35 all up, but man it looks good! Plus, before I commited to buy I had scoped out our options, and was completely unimpressed with the range at Bunnings that wouldn't have involved any postage. So, although the average cost per knob/handle was high(ish), they look a lot better than anything else I could find!

What else is missing? How about a tap so we could actually run water into our lovely new basin?

I had my eye on taps that looked a lot like the one above. The one problem with taps like that? The knobs to turn the water on and off are all the way at the base of the spout. Since our plan was to stick the tap at the back of the cabinet so it was centred behind the basin, it would be pretty tricky to reach around to operate it with the taps below the rim of the basin.

Enter this beautiful guy.

He was actually a complete gamble for me.

We had strolled the tap aisle of Bunnings searching. I had trawled the Internet searching. Taps are big business, by the look of it, because they cost a fortune! Plus it's really difficult to find ones with the handle at the top like we needed!

And then I found this guy (who I'm going to name Terence... Terence the Tap) on the Dino Direct website for the shockingly low price of... wait for it... $21.58. Yes. 

Considering that his not-so-distant cousin over at Restoration Online (pictured below) is asking for a whopping $1,091, I was convinced that dear old Terence sounded way too good to be true.

Even with a $31.08 shipping cost to Australia, Terence was under 5% of the price of one of the only other taps I could find that would suit our needs and look good while doing it.

I waited with baited breath for the mail to arrive for a few weeks, and then Terence was home. And I couldn't believe it! He's real!

And what's better? He actually works! Tom drilled a few holes in our vanity cabinet so we could fit his plumbing in.

 

Unfortunately Terence didn't come with the best quality pipes, but a quick trip to Bunnings for replacements sorted that out, and we have a fully operational vanity!

What's next? Shedding a little light on the subject!

In typical style, I did a big search of all our lighting options, finding the range online much better than the range in the stores I visited. I considered this...



from Online Lighting for $57.55

 And this...

also from Online Lighting for $69.25 (not available anymore, by the looks of it)

And this...

for a huge $127 also from Online Lighting

Before settling on this.

It too was at Online Lighting for $39.95, making it the cheapest option I found. I worried that it was a bit too tizzy and girly, but the boys liked it, and I couldn't argue with the price tag! I even dropped in at Discount Lighting at Rocklea where we bought most of the lights for our last house, and they managed to order two in for me at $35 a pop!

They look pretty good!

 Even better as a pair.

So there you have it. Our new bathroom vanity that went from this...

 

To this!

Isn't she beauuutiful??

And the cost grand total?

    Cabinet - free! We already owned it!   

    Paint spraying - $400 (I decided to attribute $200 of the $600 cost to the table we got done)

    Vanity basin - $60ish

    New hardware - $89.35

    Tap - $52.66

    Total: $602.01

I haven't included the $70 lights in there since they're not technically part of the vanity unit, nor have I included the little sink drain or extra plumbing bits and pieces for the tap, since I have to find the receipt for them. If we assume they were an extra $50, that brings our grand total to roughly $650! Not bad for a practically brand new fancy huge vanity, huh?