Budget Bathroom Makeover: Goodbye Orange Oak

I have covered the last bit of orangey oak cabinets in our house, and it feels good.  After I painted the kitchen cabinets, I wasn’t sure if I could ever bring myself to paint cabinetry again.  The results were so good, but the work and patience required…well, I wasn’t sure if I had it in me.

But after painting the bathroom and hanging the curtains, it was clear that cabinet eyesore needed to be covered.

I’ve had a few readers ask why I wouldn’t just pull down the mirror and lighting and replace them with a framed mirror and new fixture.  While I agree that those two things could be done on the cheap, our long term goal is to put in a vanity with a double sink.  When we do that, we’ll need an even bigger mirror and a new light fixture.  So, we’re opting not to waste the time and resources now on something that would need to be changed/updated later. It is a budget bathroom makeover, after all!

So, until I can have my dream vanity, mirror, light fixture and faucet, we’re going to hope that white paint makes everything better!  Back in my design plan I talked about painting the vanity black.  But once I had the curtains up, it was clear that white was the best choice.  Do you think that I was right?

And to remind you, here is what the cabinets looked like at the beginning with that yellow paint on the walls…

And after…

Now the room just needs to be warmed up with some fun accessories that I have in mind, including bath mats, a DIY towel holder and some pops of color.

As for the painting process, you can check out the kitchen cabinet painting post for more details.  But here’s the quick and dirty for you:

• I removed all of the doors and mirror panes and cleaned up the wood by gently sanding by hand and clearing the dust.
• I learned my lesson from the kitchen and used two coats of oil-based primer.  A light sanding between coats is recommended.
• I only needed two coats of a satin white latex paint (compared to 4 in the kitchen!) so the double primer coats worked well.
• This process happened over 5 days or so, letting different coats dry over night, etc.  This project definitely takes patience!

Be sure to let me know what you think of the transformation and then let me know about projects that you have going on at your house!  Are you planning to cover up any eyesores soon?  Have you battled orange oak cabinets in your house like I have?