How to Quickly Paint a Bathroom Vanity Cabinet

It was time to paint our master bathroom and that included painting the vanity cabinet. Many people are hesitant to paint bathroom cabinets for fear they may not do the proper prep work, will paint in a way that shows brush marks, or will just not use the right paint that lasts. Well, fear no more! Here’s how to quickly paint a bathroom vanity cabinet.

I’ve been painting furniture for nearly six years. And through a ton of trial and error I’ve learned that painting those freestanding furniture pieces is very similar to painting a built-in bathroom vanity.

Here’s how the cabinet looked “before”. It was a very nice stained cherry cabinet. It just didn’t coordinate with the other cooler color tones we had in the adjacent rooms. So when we decided to paint the bathroom walls, we decided it was also time to paint the bathroom vanity cabinet.

If you want to read more about my adventure painting the bathroom walls, read THIS post.

We chose the same color for the cabinet as we painted on the walls. It’s Sherwinn Williams Naval in a satin finish. It’s a gorgeous, deep navy blue but with some brightness to it. At night the color looks very dark, almost black. During the day, with the direct sunlight shining on the wall, the color is clearly a colorful navy. The more natural light in a room, I think the better this color looks.

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With a typical freestanding cabinet, I normally would take it outside and run my electric rotary sander over every inch of the wood. But this cabinet was fixed in place.

I removed the drawers and cabinet doors, and very lightly sanded them with 120-grit sandpaper. After vacuuming and wiping the cabinet down with a damp cloth to remove any sanding dust, I painted on the first coat of Benjamin Moore semi-gloss acrylic enamel paint.

THIS is my favorite brush because it’s super thin – the thinest one I’ve found on the market:

Let dry and lightly sanded again with 120-grit sandpaper.

Then brushed on a second coat of the enamel paint. Let it dry and done. It was that easy.

If these were kitchen cabinets, I would recommend doing an intense cleaning on the cabinets first to remove any dirt and oil and in some cases may need to add a primer first. But bathroom cabinets are not typically exposed to grease and oils from cooking.

It’s been about 9 months since this cabinet was painted and it has held up perfectly. At some point I’ll find the perfect drawer hardware, replace the countertop with a white granite or marble, and find a new light fixture. But there’s no rush. For now the bathroom is clean, functional, and colorful.

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If you would like to know exactly which enamel paint I used on this cabinet and how I manipulate this paint to minimize brush marks, refer to my ebook: