bathroom | The Navy Door

If you happened to have read my post on How I Painted My Brand New Kitchen Cabinets With General Finishes Milk Paint, you will find that the process is the same, but I thought it would be helpful to give you more examples on how to save money repurposing the items you already have in your home.

Here are a few pictures of my cabinets when we first unpacked them. For me, it was much easier to spray the cabinets before they were hung, if you have the opportunity to do so. I did have to touch up some paint and add the topcoat after they were hung. You can paint your cabinets if they’re already hung, but I found it to be a little more work than when they were not hung.

After unpacking the cabinets and separating the bathroom cabinets from the kitchen cabinets, I then lightly sanded the parts of the cabinet that I was painting, with a 220 grit to remove the shine, then wiped them down with a 50% rubbing alcohol and 50% water mixture, to remove all dust for a clean surface to spray on.

I had a lot of cabinets to paint and a limited time to do them before the carpenter was scheduled to put them up. So I decided to use a spray gun called Wagner Home Decor HVLP Stationary Sprayer at Home Depot. I purchased the unit that came with a tent (only $20 more). This sprayer was easy to use but may not have been the right choice for such a large project. There were a few times that the sprayer would either get stuck or would not evenly spray. After a little more research I learned that if I strained the milk base paint with a filter from Home Depot, which is where I purchased mine, I had fewer issues with the spray gun.

You’ll see in the images below, which are actually my kitchen cabinets but that’s because it was hard to take a picture in the bathroom, as the cabinets were already mounted. The process is the same as in the picture below. I used Green FrogTape to tape the inside of the cabinet off, to keep it clean. I took the tape and stuck it around the inside of the trim of the cabinet, with the sticky side of the tape facing out, then cut a piece of plastic drop cloth that I purchased from the Dollar Store, to the green tape. You’ll see I also used the tape to cover any holes or gaps to prevent paint from spraying into the cabinets.

When you apply light coats of the milk base paint with the spray gun, it gives it an amazing finish. I applied three coats of paint, and three coats of High Performance topcoat. I wouldn’t recommend using any less, from my personal experience.

I knew that I wanted a gray color cabinet in my bathrooms, but General Finishes has so many great colors to pick from that it was still hard to decide. I finally went with Driftwood because it was a lighter shade of gray and I thought it would look great with the finishes I wanted.

Here are my finished bathroom cabinets with the hardware that I also refinished in this post Knobs, Knobs, Knobs!

What do you think? I love how both the cabinets and hardware came out! Please leave any questions or comments below, I would be more than happy to help.

Xo Christine

I consider myself to be a smart shopper. Don’t get me wrong I like really nice things and I’m willing to spend the money, but if I can save myself some of it, I’m all about that too. I realized after I painted my cabinets I would need hardware for them, but didn’t realize that you could easily spend a few hundred dollars on a piece of metal that opened and closed your cabinet door.

I looked on all the major sites that you could think of for the knobs that I wanted and of course, at the time I couldn’t find them in the color I was looking for, the story of my life! I happened to be at Target and spotted these hammered looking knobs that I loved, but only came in silver. They were on clearance, so I thought I could just paint them. I also found this half-moon drawer handle at JoAnn Fabric, that I also had to have. The two places that I would have never thought I would find the handle for my house, but there they were.

Here are the knobs I bought from Target. It is a little hard to tell but these knobs have a hammered look to them, you will be able to see the difference in the finished picture.

I unpackaged these knobs and stood them up on a wooden skewer that you might use for chicken kabobs. They are cheap and I already had them at home! I stuck them in a block of styrofoam while I sprayed them, and let them dry there as well. I took them out of the styrofoam, while still on the stick and lightly touched up a few spots that I had missed. I used Krylon Foil metallic copper spray paint that I found at Pat Cantans. Although this store is no longer in business, I attached a link for Walmart, where I found it for the same price.

After giving these items time to dry, I coated them with Zinsser Bulls Eye Shellac in clear from Home Depot. Be sure to follow the directions on the back of this bottle, because if you tend to get too close you will get a different finish, but I still went with this product because it is extremely durable for everyday usage.

These half-moon handles are from JoAnn Fabric, and although they were not on clearance, I was able to save some cash by using their coupons that you can find on their website or their app. I simply laid these handles out in a shallow box with newspaper and sprayed each handle to match the knobs, and added the same shellac sealer to finish out this project.

After two days of letting these knobs and handles dry, we attached them to the brand new kitchen cabinets that I refinished, and my bathroom cabinets. I love the way they turned out! Please let me know if you have any questions on this project, I would love to hear from you!

Xo Christine