A small water stain grew to a full on project

Have you ever tried to fix something small, and end up making a bigger mess than you started with?

Well, this week I have firsthand experience doing just that.  Remember that beautiful light stained pine dry sink that I found on craigslist?; well it's not so beautiful at the moment.  It came with some slight areas of water staining on the front of the door.  I wanted to see if I could manage to fix them.  I googled how to remove water stains from wood and found some cool tricks.  So I tried a few of them out.  And created myself a mess.  I lightly sanded the area down and then applied a little petroleum jelly to the area.  The wood soaked it up and turned a much darker shade than the rest of the wood.  So then I tried using some toothpaste as an abrasive.  And then baking soda...etc.  Then I called it quits, and cleaned my mess up for the moment.  When the Laird came home, I showed him and tried to convince myself "it wasn't that bad."  I asked him what he thought.  His response was that it didn't look good. We both agreed I should try to fix it.  Then I decided maybe I could lightly sand down the finish off of the edges and corners of the cabinet & doors and then apply wax to darken those areas.  My thought was that this would give it a weathered and worn look.  That didn't really work well because my initial water stained area was too large.  I then used a chemical finish stripper thinking that would be easier than sanding the finish off.  It turned out terrible, and uneven.  It was more difficult than I imagined.  So when all else fails, you get out the power sander and sand it down completely.  Start over- blank slate.

I sanded down the exterior and top of this dry sink using a 50 grit sandpaper, to remove the polyurethane.  Then I used 220 to smooth out the roughness I had created.    Though I was dreading it because of the detail and corners, it went quicker than I anticipated.  I did not sand down the left side of the cabinet because it will be against the wall, nor did I do the interior of the cabinet or door.  I had to hand sand the hard to reach cracks and corners.

Once everything was sanded, it was time to bring the cabinet into the house (it's below freezing here) to tea stain.  Check out this tea staining post for more detail on how to tea stain.

Tea Staining the top of the dry sink

Test wood on top of tea stained dry

Tea stain applied to mirror

Mirror sanded

This cabinet was previously a typical yellowish pine shade, with some sort of "frosting" coat/finish to tone down the color.  Though I sanded all the finish off, it is obvious that I didn't sand through the original stain penetration.  As soon as I applied my tea stain (4 tea bags, in 4 cups boiling water- soaked for 1 hour), that original yellowish-shade popped back through.  

After the tea had dried, I applied a coat of my steel-wool vinegar mixture.  The cabinet turned a very light grey color- which was not quite what I was hoping for.  I then applied another coat of tea, and once dry I applied another coat of vinegar.  This time it turned out a little darker grey shade, and I like it .  

We ordered the white ceramic vessel sink (15 in. round) from Overstock.com for a decent price.  Unfortunately it seems a little large for the size of this cabinet, so we found another 12 in. vessel sink on etsy.com and returned the original.  

All we have to do now is apply a few coats of polyurethane and then this part will be ready for the bathroom upgrade.  Though I created a mess out of trying to fix a small water stain, I LOVE the new look of our soon-to-be bathroom vanity!