Once outdated, blotchy, rough, cheap, and painful to look at, this vanity has been given a new life.
Though the actual cabinet cases remained as they were before, the old doors, drawer fronts and boxes, and hardware were scrapped. The species that the face frames were made out of turned out to be alder, so new alder doors and drawer fronts were made.
The face frames were sanded down, the recessed areas of the frames under the sinks were painted black as an accent.
Bookmatched panels, made with 1/2" plywood, give balance not found in today's industrialized cabinetry. The doors are made with 1/2" long tenons, with the panels being fully housed. These doors are strong, unlike the flimsy originals.
The first few coats of finish on everything was dewaxed shellac, which gave everything a warm rich base color. The doors were then selectively glazed with a homemade black glaze, only in the inner profiles. This helped the new wood blend better with the old face frames, which had some residual stain that had penetrated deep into the grain. Everything was then top coated with several coats of semi gloss polyurethane.
Another door with it's bookmatched panel.
The old particleboard drawer boxes, with their warped 1/4" construction plywood bottoms were discarded and rebuilt using 3/4" pine boards and a 1/2" birch ply (finish grade) bottoms.
The false panels in front of each sink are attached with these roller latches. This allowed me to adjust them as needed when the drawers went in.
No handles or knobs are necessary as there are pulls under each drawer, and the doors sit on top of the face frames instead of being inset. This gives it the clean calm look that I wanted.
The original doors and ugly color, cheap as can be, are unfortunately also in my kitchen and master bath.
The original doors are butt jointed, not coped, and have 3/16" grooved plywood just slapped in the back and stapled in place. Some of these older doors have staples that are coming out of the back! Disgraceful.
