going a little black

you know, i love my white. i love white trim in a house. white baseboards, crown moldings, door frames, cabinets, bead board... i love it all white. bright white. ultra high-gloss white. i think it makes everything look clean. so i was a little nervous when i asked husband if he thought i should paint the bathroom vanity white or black and he told me black. black? its just so... dark... but i usually paint things whatever color i want, despite what he says so this time i decided to go with it.

this morning, after baby fell asleep in the high chair and was taking a very early nap (we're talking nap started at 9:30 people...) i started thinking about what i wanted to paint today. i did just find the perfect shade of grey for my bedroom... but the trim isn't quite done and i'm not strong enough to move furniture blocking my way. same story for the front room. however, i could always get myself a quart of black paint... cabinets aren't so hard... i just finished my laundry room ones (pictures coming, i SWEAR). so as soon as nugget woke up from his nap, we headed to home depot. i picked out the blackest of black in the highest of high-gloss. i got home, put some gates up (nobody needs black baby hand prints every where) and got to work.

Here is my "before." okay, so i'm not the biggest fan of this bathroom. first it has carpet in it. yuck. second, i'm not a huge fan of the blue sink. combine that with the wierd blue tiles around the sink and vanity top and you get a gem of a bathroom. third, i don't really like oak cabinets. they are fine, just not really the style i want to have going on in my house. so here's what i did. i cleaned my door fronts, drawers and everything, you know, anything i wanted to paint, i cleaned. just some 409. i figured i didn't really need to worry about the finish since i was going to be painting over it. then i primed it. I used glidden gripper in grey. it. is. awesome. i hardly had to do two coats of the black at all. i only did because i wanted everything to have a nice super glossy finish to it. after the primer dried i painted the first coat of black. waited about an hour and then did the second coat. waited a little bit longer and then put all the hardware back on. i probably could have waited longer, but i was just too excited to see it all put together:

and here is is finished! i really really really like how it turned out. I'm way happy that i went with husbands idea of black and didn't do white instead. i like it so much that i just might do my other bathroom too. i do have more than half of the quart of paint left... we'll see! i think all i need now is some good drawer pulls. i'm thinking a brushed silver of some kind.

what do you think?