Creating a part 2 was mean, I know. But c’mon, no one wants to read a blog post that’s pages and pages long! Plus I wanted one dedicated space to rant.

When we first decided to bump this bathroom renovation up the priority list, we knew it was going to be a tight budget, so we wanted to cut costs wherever we could. Reusing the existing vanity and mirror seemed like an easy way to do that. Plus who doesn’t love a good reduce, reuse, recycle project? Except for when it all goes wrong, of course.

Grayson and I had already picked out the tiles we were going to use, and we decided to go bold on the vanity. After lots of back and forth, we decided on Sweeping Rock by Sherwin Williams.

After we finally chose a color, I got to work. I removed the doors and drawers and cleaned them, along with the vanity itself, with a TSP solution. I kid you not, I originally thought that the vanity was an off white (think antiqued, creamy white)… nope. It was bright white under the 30 some odd years of grime. Cue the cringing and immediate urge to go clean everything else in this house with TSP.

Next up I sanded down all the doors and drawers, filled the imperfections with wood filler, and sanded again, wiping with tack cloths in between stages. I also recaulked all the doors so the grooves wouldn’t have gaps, but rather a smooth and seamless transition between the separate pieces of wood.

Another round of wiping and cleaning later and I was ready to start priming. Everything got two coats of primer, using a brush on the grooves and a roller to backroll out any brush strokes and roll the flat surfaces.

And then finally, FINALLY it was time to paint. Three days of prep work had gotten me to this point. I was ready to go.

And so I dove in, brushing and rolling and backrolling the vanity, brushing and rolling and backrolling the drawers, spraying and flipping and spraying the doors some more early in the morning to beat the heat and humidity of the day.

The can said to wait 4 hours before the next coat. I waited 9. Better safe than sorry, right?

The doors were still a bit tacky, but I had followed the instructions. “Maybe it’s just this type of paint,” I thought to myself. I had never worked with this kind before, after all.

And so I sprayed and I brushed and I backrolled and I rolled. And I waited and I hoped and I prayed to the goddess of good universe vibes that this would work. I cleaned out my dang paint sprayer for the second time that day.

The doors and drawer sat and sat. At midnight, five hours after I had applied the second coat, I pulled them into the garage to sit for longer, out of the way of the morning sun and sprinklers.

The can said it would take three days to cure, so I waited three days. And then five. And then eight. Still, the paint was coming off at the slightest touch. The main unit inside was no better.

So, I went back to Lowe’s with a door in my hand to show them my complaint with hard physical proof, and was met with shrugs and “that’s a shame”, given a bottle of Citristrip and $10 back, and sent on my not-so-merry way to scrape all my hard work off my doors.

So I tried. I really did, honestly. I applied the Citristrip and wrapped it in plastic to help keep some of the moisture in and allow the chemicals to soak in more effectively. I scraped off gooey paint and then tried again. More CitriStrip. More plastic. More waiting. More scraping.

Nothing. It was like moving globs of goop around in circles, utterly pointless and maddening.

“Time for the big guns,” I thought to myself as I broke out the mineral spirits and steel wool. My chemical gloves were coated in the gooey paint at this point, adding to the mess. My hair was a mess of sweaty curls, each coil competing to stick to my forehead and annoy me more than the one before. Three hours later, I had done two rounds of mineral spirits, and while it was better, the results still weren’t great.

So, I let them dry, thinking I could attack the remaining paint with my sander. Out came the mask and hearing protection. Back on went the gloves and the goggles. One hour and eight sheets of sandpaper later, I hadn’t even made it through one door.

I didn’t even bother trying to strip the main vanity, because at this point it seemed pretty pointless.

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I was fuming. Grayson was too. We loaded the doors and drawers up into the truck and hauled them back to Lowe’s. Glances and murmurs were exchanged between the employees. Everyone was in shock at the state of the cabinetry. They took down all the information and admitted that I wasn’t the only person with this problem and even said that it seemed the vanity was a total loss. Apparently Valspar had sent Lowe’s paint that had been mislabeled at their factory, and so the person behind the paint desk put in the amount of tint that the label called for, which was far too much for the mislabeled base, apparently meaning it would never cure. Our information was then sent on to their Valspar rep to see what the company could do to help us fix the issues.

Three days went by and we had heard nothing. Grayson reached out again to see what the status was. When he eventually got an answer, it wasn’t what we wanted.

“Valspar said it is not their fault, and they recommend that you keep working to strip the doors and then start over.”

Well, twelve hours and a couple hundred dollars in supplies later, I could tell you that wasn’t going to happen because it’s simply impossible. The Lowe’s staff agreed, and said they would send us over to their insurance company to file a claim.

So here we are. Three weeks later and we’ve had an inspector come out to assess the damage, so we’re still waiting to hear back. In an effort to cover all the bases, one of the doors is currently with a paint company to get a quote on how much it would cost to strip the paint off just to get a paintable surface. Their rough estimate? Thousands of dollars, if it’s even possible at all.

The only update we’ve gotten from the insurance company was when Grayson called a few days after the inspector came by to check on the report. They said that they’ll submit their findings to Lowe’s and it’ll be up to Lowe’s to determine if they agree with the findings and how to proceed.

In the meantime, we wait. We don’t know what will happen with the vanity, so we can’t install the flooring or make an progress with the bathroom. I’m 100% certain there will be a part 3 to this series, I’m just not sure when. I’ll make sure to tell you when to check back for all the dramatic updates.