Sick of Your Old Dated Bathroom Cabinets?

11 Materials
$200
3 Days
Medium

Before we put our farmhouse on the market, I knew the bathrooms HAD to be tackled and the first thing on my list was painting the cabinets! I’m an avid furniture refinisher so i had all the materials and tools within reach, but you’d be surprised how simple and inexpensive this project can be if you DO THE PREP work...I really want to emphasize this because trust me, PREP is key to a beautiful and LONG LASTING finish!

So follow along with me as i go over how I refinished my old oak bathroom cabinets with a fresh new look that will last for years to come!



Feel free to follow along with my other projects on my Instagram @fosterfarmhousefurniture

Here is the before photo...if you notice the after photo also includes a rustic wood frame that was built to upgrade the look of that massive mirror, as well as new LVP flooring, new faucets, and of course new hardware for the freshly painted cabinets!

I LOVE my paint sprayers, honestly after i purchased my first one i knew it would be a game changer for my business...not just the time it saves me, but the finish is unbeatable. For my furniture and cabinet projects I use General Finishes milk paint with a Varathane poly top coat (go with Varathane over minwax....it wont yellow at all, as long as you dont over apply it!


One thing I REALLY want to stress is wiping down your cabinets with TSP as well as sanding them. You dont have to go crazy with the sanding or get down to the bare wood by any means, but you do want to break through the top coat...otherwise no matter how good of paint you have or how many coats of poly you apply, you will experience chipping. I will try to find a photo of the sanding process but its pretty straight forward. You can use an orbit sander, a sanding block or even just sand paper.


After you have your cabinets and cabinet base sanded be sure to wipe all the excess dust off the service before you paint it!!!


If you’re hand painting then at this point you can start taping off and get your brush on.


Please note I painted my base cabinets with a brush...to me this seemed much simpler than masking off the whole room to use my sprayer.


If you’re using a sprayer make sure you thin the product accordingly...the back of your can should give you this information...because each can of milk paint arrives with a different consistency I can’t really tell you how much water you’ll need to add to thin your paint down. The more you use your sprayer the more you’ll get an idea of how thin you want your paint coming through the sprayer. Ideally you shouldn’t have an paint build up on your sprayer tip...if you do, chances are your paint is too thick and this when you will start to see a “splatter” type spray opposed to a super fine spray that naturally self levels. Thats another great thing about milk paint...for the most part its a self leveler, which makes it SO easy to work with.

When using your sprayer make sure to do thin light coats, you’ll most likely do about 3 coats total this way...its important to let each coach try accordingly to the back of your paint can before you reapply, dont forget your temperature and environment may change this a bit!

I’m so glad I went with the color driftwood by General Finishes...we knew we weren’t going to replace these granite tops so it had to be a color that would compliment them and i think it does the job!

The new hardware adds a rustic handsome look that ended up matching with mirror and the rest of the room perfectly!

Here you can see how amazingly smooth the poly goes on and looks afterwards...i wish you could reach out and touch it...its smooth like butter!

When spraying the poly you will NOT be thinning it at all...when using a Homeright Finish Max sprayer like shown in my photos, your poly finish will come out super fine and leave a flawless factory like finish!

Here’s a little better angle with a before photo!

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  • Sara E Townsell Sara E Townsell on Jan 04, 2020

    Can you a brush instead of the sprayer

  • Donna Ohanian Donna Ohanian on Jan 04, 2020

    My mirror has screws on top & bottom. How did you cut your frame to account for them? Otherwise frame won't sit flat on wall.

  • Lillian Lillian on Jan 14, 2020

    Please advise of recommended kitchen cabinet painters in the Lexington Frankfort, Ky area.


    thank you.

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