I think it's finished, goodness knows it's taken a long time.
No, not the whole bathroom, just the bathroom cabinet !
I previously wrote about it
here, when I bought the baskets for it.
And now it looks like this.
Maybe more shabby than chic, but at least it's nothing like the original (you could stop here, there's just loads more chat and pictures of the same thing !!!).
I really wanted to change it completely, with no resemblance to what it once was. As I mentioned before, I was really happy with my effort to re-hang the bottom door, and add a shelf.
I looked for some paint in my shed and found a Timbershield fence paint that went on really well and acted as a primer, but it was a bit orange. Then I found a darker brown, and painted a layer of that as well.
I wanted chicken wire in the top door with fabric behind and tried to work out a way of adding it all on top of the mirror, so that I wouldn't have to smash it, but in the end it was no good, I just had to take the whole top door apart.
The mirror didn't smash because it was stuck to a bit of board, but the frame looked like a few bits of old cardboard when I'd finished !
With a lot of glue, panel pins and some caulk, I managed to stick it all back together.
I went to the closest diy store to check out the chicken wire but it was all bright and shiny and only sold in rolls of expensive lengths. I found a great alternative, a panel of galvanised mesh that was all grey and powdery from having been left out in the rain.
The mesh isn't fixed at all, I just cut it to size and it slotted in perfectly where the mirror and board used to sit.
After the brown I painted two coats of a light grey, a colour I made from a charcoal matchpot and some white paint, and did lots of distressing and some odd scratching to make it look pretty old.
Finding the right fabric was hard, but in the end I settled on a Jamie Oliver tea towel that I stained with coffee.
They came in a pack of two, and I stained the one with the thicker stripes first to see if it would work. The coffee seemed to dull the colours slightly, which worked well with all the distressing I had done.
So I fixed it in the back with plastic coated wire and hooks.
I found the two ceramic egg shaped and perfectly coloured knobs in my stash.
I painted a graphic on the side (not well, I couldn't find my old glasses). I saw 'Pharmacie Centrale' on something at the Graphics Fairy, and the address was found on a soap graphic from the same place.
And of course, this is where I stuck my little poster, that I wrote about in the
previous post, and for which I bought a new pair of glasses.
On the bottom door I put some numbers, so that one can do stock control on the contents !
Not that my contents need stock control, but at least they all fit in.
I'm really pleased with it, although I did plan to do something else to it. I am sure you're thinking it's rather gimmicky already (enough Fiona, just STOP), but when an idea pops in my head, it's hard to get rid of it.
So my little store cupboard from La Pharmacie Centrale at Rue Lafayette is now finished and although it took a lot of time, it actually cost me less than £20,
and I'm half way round the
bathroom with the tongue and groove !
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