Painting bathroom cabinets is a pretty simple weekend project that only has three simple steps. If you can tape, sand, and paint, you can paint bathroom cabinets.
Derek and I are no stranger to painting cabinets. We've hired it out and paid someone else to do it, we've done it on our own with a paint sprayer, and we've painted by hand twice. I can honestly say my preferred method so far has been painting them by hand on our own.
We paid professionals to paint our kitchen cabinets in Georgia, and they started chipping basically the same week they were done. When we bought our last house before this current one, we used a paint sprayer for our cabinets but it left them with a weird texture that can happen if you're not an expert with a paint sprayer and know exactly how to dial it in correctly.
We've done this hand painting method twice now and both times we've had consistent even results, no chipping, and it's held up perfectly!
How to Paint Bathroom Cabinets:
To paint bathroom cabinets you're going to tape off all the walls. Unscrew the doors and drawers, sand everything down, wipe with a tak cloth, and then paint with 2-3 coats of your favorite satin finish paint. After everything is dried you'll reassemble your vanity, and you're finished! It really is such a simple project and the results have turned out perfectly for us the two times we've done this project.
What Supplies Do You Need To Paint Bathroom Cabinets?
- Painters Tape
- 220 Grit Sand Paper
- Tak Cloth
- 2 Inch Angled Brush
- 4 Inch Foam Roller
- Paint Color of Choice
- Paint Tray
- Garbage Bag (I use to line paint tray for easy clean up)
- Painters Triangles
- Felt Cabinet Pads
Best Paint for Bathroom Cabinets:
Complete Steps for Painting Bathroom Cabinets:
To paint bathroom cabinets, you're first going to need to tape off your vanity from the floor, the walls, and the counter top above it. This will ensure you get nice crisp lines, and that you won't get paint where you don't want it.
After everything is taped off, remove the doors and drawers and put all their accompanying screws into a zip lock bag. This way you'll have them when you need to reassemble everything later.
With those things out of the way you're ready to start sanding. You're going to sand down your doors, drawers, and base cabinet with 220 grit sand paper. This is enough to take the old finish off of the cabinet, and will give the new paint something to grab onto.
Once you're done sanding everything really well, you'll grab a tak cloth to wipe everything down. The tak cloth is a super sticky piece of fabric that will grab and wipe away all the sanded sawdust so that it doesn't ruin your paint finish.
Next take your doors and drawers out to the garage and set them onto painter tripods. This keeps them up off the ground while you're painting, but doesn't leave an imprint in the paint of your door or drawer. You'll need four painter tripods per door/drawer so that everything has a stable surface while you're working.
Now you're ready to paint! I use a two inch angle brush to get into the detailed edging on the cabinet doors, and areas on the vanity that the roller is too large for and cannot reach. Once I've brushed everything in with my angled brush, I use the 4 inch foam paint roller for the rest. Always start on the backside of your cabinet doors and drawers so that the last coat you finish is on the front.
I find it best to start with the vanity, and then go out to the garage to paint the doors and drawers, and then go back inside to paint the vanity again, and then back to the garage to flip the doors and drawers over and paint their other side. This just helps to keep everything moving and so that I'm not constantly washing brushes in between coats a million times.
Always paint with thin coats to ensure a smooth finish and allow for about an hour of dry time between coats before starting your next coat. I have never sanded in between coats, but if you have lines and feel like you need to, then sand between coats. Just know I didn't and I don't regret that decision.
Once everything has three coats of paint and has had plenty of time to dry and your doors, drawers, and vanity are not sticky to the touch, reassemble your vanity. After we paint a vanity we always put felt furniture pad stickers on the inside of the corner of the doors to ensure the painted door won't stick to the painted vanity.
Note: We did not use a top coat to finish these. We didn't on our bathroom in our last house and they held up fine, and these ones so far have held up fine without as well.
That is everything you need to know about how we painted our bathroom cabinets! Like I've said, we've tried all the methods so far and this has by far been the easiest method with the best results for us. I think we're planning on doing the same method for our kitchen cabinets in the next few months!
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