Bathroom Cabinet Facelift

The recent cold days have kept me stuck inside the house. It is one very good reason why I hate the winter months. During one sunny but very cold day, I noticed how horrible my bathroom cabinets looked. So, it was time to fix it.
What better way to spend time indoors than to repaint and freshen up the indoor space? (I also painted the walls and we added homemade fixtures but those will be a topic for another day.)

Here's a picture of the horrible, dirty, grungy, and ugly before:

I went through my paint remnants in search of inspiration. I found an olive green color left over from updating a customer's bench. The color coordinated well with the shower curtain in the other portion of the bathroom. This was a last-minute decision and not something for which I had set a budget so I needed to be careful to use as much of what I had to avoid spending money that I would regret later. 

I mixed the paint with chalk powder to use my own precise color for the project. I have had great success using BB Frosch's chalk paint powder (BB Frösch Paint Transformer Powder (bbfrosch.com) as it allows me to turn any color into chalk paint. 

I cleaned the surface and started painting. 

It took a couple of coats to get the look that I wanted but I locked myself in the room with a podcast and worked away. 

I normally cover my chalk pieces with wax but if you couldn't tell with the previous picture, this area receives a lot of abuse as it is the main bathroom sink for the entire family. I wasn't sure that I would be able to get the corners and other areas covered well with the wax so I chose to experiment with water-based polyurethane. I applied three coats of this product to help protect the finished surface. 

Next, the handles were replaced we were able to return to using this bathroom vanity!

It did require portions of three days* for this project but that was due to:

1. It being a part of a larger bathroom paint job.

2. The time required between coats to allow it to dry.

3. The fact that I underestimated my time and had to start and stop to accommodate outside-of-the-house commitments.

This truly could have been a one-day project.

You may have noticed that I didn't mention removing the cabinet doors from the hinges. Most DIY sites will recommend this for any cabinet paint job. Personally, I was simply too lazy to do this and felt that I would be able to get close enough with small brushes and strokes that it would not matter. In addition, our past experiences have taught us that just because you can take something apart doesn't mean that it will always go back together. I didn't want to take that risk for a spur-of-the-moment project. 

For a weekend project, I feel that this portion turned out pretty well!

*Of note, our family of six should NOT try to utilize one bathroom on a regular basis.