Resurfacing my Vanity with a Vinyl Sticker Roll

A few years ago I decided it was time to buy myself a vanity desk to store all my makeup, skincare and various other misc things that comes with being a girl. It's the only piece of furniture that I have kept through my move this past year and has been very useful as storage of any "inventory" that doesn't fit in the tiny manhattan apartment bathrooms. The only thing I regret is not getting something that's a little more modern and made of a different material than wood. Yes I bought a wood vanity - and the signs of wear is already starting to show.

I decided that the best way to salvage this situation is to resurface the top that has been damaged by the stuff that's leaked out of my cosmetic bottles. So a couple of things happened as a result of that. The paint would come off when I wiped off nail polish remover that might have accidentally ended up on the surface. Then certain spots wouldn't come off when I tried to wipe it because it was oily, so I'd put a cotton pad over it to cover it up until it dried. But the cotton pad would end up getting stuck to the surface. When I pulled it off, it left behind a thin layer of cotton. Then there are other things that I'd leave on top of it like my necklace holder, and when I moved the base, a ring of paint would come off with it. I don't remember this vanity being so cheap! I guess I just haven't been taking good care of it like I should.

Needless to say - the surface of this piece of furniture has become so gross and ugly and just unusable and I avoided it at all costs.

I've been playing around with a couple of ideas lately and decided on the easiest but cleanest looking solution would be to get a surface that I could just lay over the old surface. I know if I really wanted to do it right, I'd sand the surface down and reapply a layer of paint but that is just WAY too much work, including haveing to take everything out of the drawers, move it outside and get all the equipment and supplies I would need. Given how the weather's been extremely cold lately, this project would have had to wait a few more weeks. (Although, fortunately we have a balcony so we could move it out there. But so many stairs and things to carry it over).

That said, I ended up buying a vinyl sticker roll from the eBay seller premiumgraphicx-apt. For around $19 USD I figured out a quick and relatively easy solution to a less ugly vanity desk surface.

Let me warn you that I learned no techniques and I probably did everything wrong possible. I ended up with a ton of air bubbles and weirdly shaped pieces here and there. BUT - in the end I think this is a good temporary solution for a piece of furniture I just want to get to a point that it's usable and am not even sure about keeping in the next couple of years.

Here's the ugly mess before the project.



Here's what the vinyl roll looks like. You can get it in different colors, and so I just bought the black one.



Here is the finished result! Not bad.



And I decided to do my nails afterward. In the spirit of the elusive spring that's right around the corner, I used Pink Glove by Essie and a Coffret D'or Jewelight in a sheer coral pink with glitter.




Last but not least - the boyfriend found out about the blog and requested I mention our celebrity sighting today as we were making our way to Union Square. Trey Anastasio of Phish was walking around looking lost. Is he a good looking man? I didn't think so in person because he looked particularly disheveled, but this is a nice picture of him.



However, I standby my statement that musicians are always more attractive than actors!