Progress on the Main Floor Bathroom

This is where we left off . . .

I've been working on staining the half-bath

cabinet a darker shade to match the

Pottery Barn mirror
{a replacement for the contractor's mirror
that came with the house.}

My house has a lot of oak.

My goal: to down-play the grain &

make this vanity look less "oak-ey".

The main obstacle?

We have snow on the ground outside

& it's way too cold to ventilate!

So that means no stinky stains please!

I decided to give water-based products a try.

Guess what - they didn't smell AT ALL &

they worked so great.

WAHOO!

That's the good news.

The bad news is that sanding is the worst.

I've never had to sand anything down to the

bare wood before & I thought 

MY ARMS WOULD FALL OFF!

{Even with my hubby's electric sander.}

Once the wood was sanded,
I used a pre-stain conditioner.


The dark areas, above, are where I had

just begun to stain - so you can see

the raw wood there too. {I'm very proud of it!}

It took several coats of 

Minwax "Toffee" stain to get the 

cabinet to this color . . .

The stain was topped 2 coats of satin water-based

polyurethane.

This was my first staining project &
I LOVE IT!

For about $20 I have a 

whole new look!