Following this year’s Christmas celebrations with family and friends, it is rewarding to be in my own place! Yep, the weekend before Christmas I finally got moved into the house! It was a push to finish the cleaning & scrubbing every room needed, but several friends pitched in and many hands make light work. The move wasn’t all that terrible either, I actually drug it out an entire week. Each day after work I would fill up my car with boxes and slowly unload them into the house, allowing me to unpack slowly and not get overwhelmed. (It was also a chance to realize that I might be a little bit of a pack rat, so I did quite a bit of purging, putting to work my recycling & trash pick up services these last two weeks.) And after all those family Christmas parties, it was nice to relax. At home. Alone. And quiet.

Beyond unpacking, organizing, tossing out, & cleaning more, I haven’t gotten to a whole lot of work inside the house. But now with a working bathroom, it was time to finish the drawers for the bathroom vanity. I had already completely disassembled & rebuilt each drawer to fit around the sink and drain plumbing. Unfortunately though, the drawers didn’t open or close well because the drawer faces were so tight to the dresser frame.

So before I attached the handles, I found where they were rubbing the dresser openings and got acquainted with my block plane to hone down the top edges of the drawer fronts. A small pile of wood shavings later, and they open & close without scraping. I even had room to attach little plastic drawer glides inside the dresser to help them operate more smoothly. Once I stained and sealed the raw edges with polyurethane, all that was left was to attach the handles.

What handle do you affix to an antique dresser turned sink vanity? The ones that were on the dresser when I bought it were made of cheap metal and the gold finish was rubbing off. The rest of the finishes in the bathroom are brushed steel, so I found these unassuming handles and I think they are just the right size. Enough that I can easily open the drawers, but they don’t take away from how bold the dark wood vanity looks in a sea of white tile.

The bottom drawer was entirely busted apart, I didn’t even attempt to fix it. I’m thinking eventually I’ll put a thin board underneath and have a couple baskets to hold towels, soaps, etc.

Next project? Stripping paint & staining the bathroom woodwork for around the window & doorway. The boards are already pulled off their frames, I just have to strip & sand years of old paint off. And once that is finished, I will let myself build a medicine cabinet.