Shocking Transformation of an ugly vanity - Beautiful RESTORATION

what are you looking at is a mid-century modern Masterpiece that has been skillfully upcycled by adding brick wallpaper and some very very very large Crystal knobs I'm just messing with you this is the ugliest thing I've ever seen in my life I don't even know what to say about this but I think that the brick wallpaper definitely has a Vibe and I think it goes quite well with the 70s Style so my plan is to turn this really weird and super ugly vanity into a beautiful midcentury modern style desk hello beautiful people and welcome to another video this one is very exciting because this project is part of a challenge that I'm doing with 12 other YouTube creators the goal of this is to make something that's in the mid-century modern style and it doesn't matter if it's a restoration an upcycling project or a build from scratch I'll put a link to the playlist with all the other videos in the description so you can watch them this is the foot rest and I'm going to keep this board because this is important for structural strength I'm going to keep this but I'll take the pting off and I'll just keep the wood underneath cuz it looks like it's a piece of mahogan there's vanity wasn't in a terrible condition when you compare it to the other pieces that I've worked on but you know this is from the' 60s so you can't really expect much worse regardless this was a lot of work which you will see and I'm pretty curious about your predictions as far as what I'm going to do with this and I'm very excited for you to see the end results because this is probably my favorite project I've done so far after removing the pting the board looked pretty rough so I decided to plain it and make it look a bit nicer [Music] I use my planer because this way I was able to remove way more material much quicker than if I just use my sander I'm not exactly sure what this was but I'm guessing maybe mold so I tried oxalic acid hydrogen peroxide and vinegar and I was able to remove a lot of it but not all of it fortunately this is the unders side so it won't be visible [Music] there was a lot of glue used for this wallpaper but it was pretty straightforward to remove it with my steamer looks like the guy who assembled this vanity his name was Travis good job Travis looks like this leg was made from brass and this mounting bracket was cast aluminium so it was very sturdy and perfect for the desk it's funny cuz it seemed like Hugo was able to sense what I was about to do so he came to give me some cuddles and chew me [Music] up 2,000 years later that was a load of scraping but because this was veneer I didn't want to risk it so scraping was much safer than [Music] sanding I used acetone to remove any residue from the varnish and I did a lot of hand sending again because I didn't want to damage the [Music] veneer [Music] one eternity later it wasn't actually raining for a change I think the first time in like a month so I took the drawers outside and I used some acetone to remove the paint before I did anything else with it once I removed most of the paint I took the drawers inside and I did a little more cleaning and as you can see the insides of these drawers wasn't the greatest so I cleaned them with acetone and I got them ready for the next step and this is just one way you can use Locker toner it's perfect for something like this when the Finish is damaged but it's not really damaged enough to sand the whole thing and redo it after dusting it off I clean everything with mineral spirit to get it ready for staining the original color of this vanity was this orangey not very desirable color so I decided to stain it Walnut and make it a bit more elegant this is going to be a desk that I will keep for myself so this is just the color that I wanted this is one of the two boards that basically hold the vanity together in the back so I'm going to reuse [Music] them until now I've been filming all my videos using my iPhone and I decided to upgrade your visual experience and I bought it designated camera which I never used before and this whole project I filmed it in manual mode so if anything isn't perfect that's why but I only had two days to learn how to use it so don't judge me these black frames that I removed from the bottom were not really bad enough to redo them so I cleaned them with mineral spirit I applied a little bit of black stain and some hard wax oil and let's not forget about Travis [Music] I applied hardox oil to all the surfaces and I let it dry for a little bit before WI wiping off the axis and this is just to show you that with hardw soil like the one I'm using you don't really need to wear a mask [Music] [Music] as I mentioned before the original finish on this vanity was this orangey color that I just didn't care for so I stained the drawers Walnut as well and with the stain that I use you do need to wear a mask I hope you're enjoying this free video as always I wanted to say a huge thank you to all of my subscribers and especially to the channel members for allowing me to do what I do if you'd like to support my channel you can find all the links in the description of the video you can buy me a coffee via buy me a coffee you can hit the super thanks button or you can visit my Amazon Wish List link and I'll be very grateful thank you and if you haven't already follow me on Facebook and Instagram because I post lots of things that I cannot post on YouTube the original Hardware was solid brass and fortunately it came with the vanity but it was just not looking great so I boiled it in vinegar and because of the shape of this Hardware I think it took me 2 hours to clean it and when I was finally done with that I used a product that was recommended to me by one of you guys and this person is a jewelry maker and he swears by this product and says that it will prevent tarnishing so I've been using it recently and I'm pretty happy with it and now the most exciting part of this project I'm going to make a brand new top and this is what the screws look like after using the rust remover I put everything roughly together just to have an idea how large the top needed to be but um the foot rest thingy is actually not where it's supposed to be so don't worry about it I'll move it later and I'm going to use a tabl toop that I got from my neighbor who gave it to me when I gave her a bench that I made in one of my older videos and here is my plan I want to make it look like it's floating above the drawer bits on the sides and make it as mid-century modern style as possible [Music] it was a bit tricky to do this huge tabletop by myself and even though Hugo came by he didn't help to make this desk more comfortable I wanted to elevate the top a little bit and the piece that was originally supporting the glass I made something similar but a bit taller the top also needed some support in the middle and in the front so I made these two pieces and I tapered them so when you're looking at the desk from the the front you can't really see them you will see what I mean this top was really big and heavy so to attach it to the support piece I use some glue and dominoes and I also made sure that the center of the support piece aligned with the center of the top because this tabletop was a bit beat up so the nicer part is going to be the underside of the top and the other side this one I'm going to put veneer over it so I'm just sending it a little bit for better adhesion I sprayed the top with the same Walnut stain and I applied some hard wax oil to the draer front for and yes I forgot to sand the edge of the tabletop but I'll fix it in a bit my original plan was to make a bit longer legs for this piece but after I clean up the original brass legs I really like them so I kept them I didn't really want them to be too shiny so I went with the brush look [Music] well I guess these were a bit shiny to prevent the brass from tarnishing I use the same product as you saw me using before and for the aluminum inner core thingies I clean them up and I spray painted them black just as they were originally to fix the back edge of the desktop that I forgot about I use a small block plane remember what I said about those support pieces that I made you can't really see them when you're looking at the desk from the front [Music] it's going to be pretty impossible to show you how I'm going to attach the top to this um support piece but I'm going to use these L brackets I'm not going to put them over here just so you have an idea what I'm doing I guess I should have done it before I put the top on but that's okay fortunately I've got lots of weird tools that um can in handy so I managed to match the look of this desktop to the original bits on this vanity I'm using sapil veneer to attach the veneer I'm using contact cement and this one is in a liquid form so you can apply with a brush or a roller it's actually easier with a brush so that's why I'm using it now if you haven't seen my previous videos all you do you wait about 10 minutes until it's dry to the touch and then you press the veneer onto whatever surface you want to apply it on it's super easy you just want to make sure they don't touch until you're ready for the venue to stick otherwise you won't be able to take it off and in case you're wondering the reason I use the tape it's so when I'm applying the contact cement it doesn't get on the surface that will be visible [Music] so after using my router to trim off the AIS veneer I was thinking how can I make this more mid-century modern and I decided to make a cut around the edges of the top that angles inwards so it actually accentuates the idea of the floating top and I was very nervous doing this because I had to use my jiga because my jiga does the bevels both ways and my trucks are only one way and it's just not the way I needed it to do and to make it as perfect as possible I used a brand new f blade on the jigum and I use a guide and it worked perfectly it was raining as it's been raining for like 5 months straight I think so I had to stain this in inside my workshop which was an ideal but worked out great when I was done staining I applied some hard wax oil as I did to the rest of this desk and I was very happy with the result at this point I'm almost done with this project and I absolutely love it I think this is my favorite project I've done so far and to emphasize the idea of the floating desktop even more I stained the beveled Edge on the desktop black which repeats the black accent from the bottom of the desk and also makes the top look like it's thinner than it really is I also did something off camera but you just need to wait until the final results to see it and now go and watch the other videos that are linked in the description and let me know what you think and which one is your favorite thank you so much for watching and see you in the next video [Music]

Channel: Flippingdrawers

Views: 195,789

Keywords: restoration, furniture, vanity, MCM

Id: oSGzmv2mNoI

Length: 29min 42sec (1782 seconds)

Published: Sun Feb 25 2024