Coffee, Caramel & Cream: How to Paint your Bathroom Vanity

Oh, paint, how I love thee. You can make such a big impact with very little money. You rock.

Our main bathroom has been getting a mini face lift. Since we are prepping and staging our house to sell, it is important for us to tackle projects that make a huge difference without spending a ton of money. (We have just added a master bathroom, where there was none, after all).

The sink cabinet was your standard, builder basic oak. When we first moved into this house 5 years ago we added the knobs and painted the bright blue walls yellow. That was in my "I love yellow, let's paint every wall in our house a shade of yellow" phase. Recently we replaced the toilet as well. So to update the entire room, I thought a nice espresso shade would work nicely.

Sorry for the dark "before" pictures. At the time Jared had the power turned off because he was switching all our outlets from almond to white. PS- I LOVE him for that :-)

I started by removing the knobs and giving the cabinet a good sanding with a sanding wedge.

After you are done sanding wipe everything down with a slightly damp rag and let dry.

Paint on a coat of primer. I used Kilz because we had some on hand.

Let dry for 4-6 hours (or as recommended by the manufacturer.)

Brush on a coat of paint. I used Olympic One in Star Anise. Get your paint in the glossiest finish they make. Since this is a bathroom, the glossier the paint means the better protection you will have.

I let that coat dry a day .... actually a week but only because I didn't get back to it until then. You only need to wait about 6-8 hours in between coats.

Paint your second coat on and let dry 2-3 days before adding the knobs back on. Just because paint is dry to the touch in 4-6 hours doesn't mean it is fully knick proof. That takes a few days so be careful around it for a few days.

My girls kept jamming their stool up against mine to brush their teeth.

Do the best you can.

You can see above how I painted the doors while they were still hanging. Since I was going darker and the hinges were already bronze, I decided to live on the wild side and just used a tiny paintbrush to get into all the small crevices and around the hardware. (Sorry, Dad, I know I've shamed you)

After you put everything back together it will look like this...

The walls read really yellow in the the picture above, I promise you they are NOT that bright. I'm just a crappy photographer. The actual color is more like the picture below. We are planning on painting the walls a nice tan , though.

So easy and so much better!

Give it a try! You can do it!

Hope you are a having a great day :-)

5 comments:

McKae @ Kaes Corner Design said...: It looks great! I love the color.; January 15, 2013 at 2:13 PM
Anonymous said...: Isn't paint wonderful! Such a satisfying transformation. It came out great!; January 15, 2013 at 3:21 PM
Becky said...: Awesome! I'm going to do this VERY thing... only not to prep to sell but because we didn't feel like paying for very many upgrades, so I have a long list of DIYs ;). I was thinking of trying Rustoleum's Cabinet Transformations kit. Might be overkill...; January 15, 2013 at 3:57 PM
Smalltowngiggles said...: Great job. I painted all my kitchen cupboard about 6 years ago. Same steps as you. But I did take all the doors down and hinges off. So far so good. And I do daycare in my home.; January 15, 2013 at 6:39 PM
Alexis AKA MOM said...: That looks amazing! Great job! I'm your newest follower :); January 16, 2013 at 9:56 AM