Painting Our Old Medicine Cabinet

If you live in an older home you probably have an old medicine cabinet somewhere in your house.  We had two - (now down to one after replacing the other with a pretty mirror).  So, I've already updated the outside of our old bathroom cabinet using washers and spray paint and I finally got around to freshening up the inside.  It was much needed as there was a little rust going on and just overall blah-ness.  It just took a little time, some paint and fabric.

Here's the before cabinet - yucky I know.  And, I have never really taken any time to organize it so things would just pile up in there.  It was easy to remove the cabinet from the wall - I did it by myself just by unscrewing it.

Once I had it out, I took it outside and taped off the part I wanted to paint.  I decided to paint the door with chalkboard paint and paint the inside just a glossy teal - both which I already owned so I didn't have to buy anything new.  After the chalkboard paint dried, I taped off the next section and spray painted it.  Remember to just use nice light even coats.  I used two coats on both sections.

Next I re-installed the cabinet and decided to use fabric to cover the little shelves.  I grabbed some leftover shower curtain fabric from our ottoman project and cut it to size.  I used a little hot glue to hold it down on the shelves as I covered it and then covered the fabric a with clear cabinet liner to make it durable and wipeable.  Just fabric would get ruined quickly.

After that I just needed to add some little bins for organizing.  I think I might go back and label the bins to just help with keeping it organized.  So far its working just fine - actually much, much better than before.

I love the addition of the chalkboard door for notes - I mean come on, I will paint anything with chalkboard paint.  So here's the before and after - so much better right?  And I just used things I already owned.

You really don't have to spend a ton of money to make some fun updates to your home.  I love it when I can do something for nothing.  

Thanks so much for joining me today!  Anybody else making some no-cost updates to their home?  Share with me!

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Updating a Boring Bathroom Mirror

When it comes to bathroom mirrors, none is worse than an old, cheap rusty medicine cabinet mirror.  And that is precisely what we have had in our little half bathroom.  I really wanted to update this mirror but didn't want to shell out the money for an upgrade - so I started thinking.  What in the world could I do to change the look of this mirror and update it a bit without spending a lot of money.

This was before we did anything to the bathroom-

Washers - this was my idea.  I'm not sure why this came to mind and I wasn't sure if it would even work but I went with it.  

I decided to take normal cheap washers - the kind you get at any hardware store and "glue" them to the mirror frame using liquid nails bonding adhesive - another common cheap product found at any local hardware store.  So here was my method -

Using my caulking gun I applied a small amount of liquid nails to the back of a washer and then smoothed it around with a cotton swab to cover the part of the washer that would stick to the mirror edge.  Don't let me fool you, this was a messy job and took a lot of cotton swabs and paper towels.  -Messy but effective.

Then I just went to town gluing my washers down.

I had to check about every 5 or 6 washers to make sure they were laying straight and level - checking at every angle.  This actually went pretty easily and quickly.  I was done in less than an hour with this part.  

After I had finished gluing all of my washers down I decided I wanted to paint it white.  I let the mirror dry for 2 days before I even touched it - I did check every now and again during the first few hours to make sure none of my washers had moved or were uneven looking.  After a good two days of drying it was ready to be primed and painted.

I just used spray primer - 2 coats and then 2 coats of white spray paint.

A quick re-install and I was done.  I have to say I love it.  The liquid nails dried really well and it's totally easy to open and close for cabinet storage just like before.  This mirror is now a focal point in the bathroom instead of an eye sore.  

For less than $20 I have a new cute mirror that still has all of the function we had before - score.  

Thanks so much for joining us today, have a wonderful weekend and don't forget to enter our giveaway - just a couple more days before the winner is announced!

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