Weekend Cabinet Remake – Updating Generic Builder Cabinets

It seems whenever I visit my daughter, we find a new project to do at her house. I love the fact that we are both creative and love to decorate. It is one of the many things we share together.

In my last post I let you know she is moving into a new house in just a few days. Before she makes the move, I wanted to share a quick post of the bathroom cabinets we had updated one weekend a couple of years ago in the old house.

Weekend Cabinet Remake

On this particular weekend, we decided to refinish what she felt were outdated cabinets in her second bathroom. You know the ones we’re talking about. Those generic builder oak cabinets you find in so many homes.

I can tell you – there is nothing generic about my daughter’s decorating and she hadn’t liked those cabinets since the day she moved in.

We began by removing the drawers and doors and going over all of the surfaces with a coat of Deglosser.

This was followed by painting all of the cabinet surfaces with a coat of primer.

Once the primer had dried, a thin coat of brown paint was added to each of the surfaces.

After the first coat had dried, the surface was sanded slightly and followed with a second coat of the brown paint to make sure that all of the area was covered, smooth and free of brush strokes.

In these pictures, the paint is still wet which makes them look shiny – but they won’t be when they are dry. Using thin coats allows for a smoother finish. On areas that needed a second sanding, a third coat of paint was added.

After all surfaces were thoroughly dried, small amounts of black paint were “dry brushed” onto the finish to give the cabinets a slightly contrasted look.

The dry brushing was continued using the black and brown paints until the look we desired was achieved.

When we were happy with the look of the finish and it had dried, a coat of Polycrylic was applied to all surfaces to seal the cabinets and give them a protective finish.

Silver brushed nickel handles were added to match the new fixtures on the sink. My son-in-law simply drilled a hole where we wanted the handles and screwed them on.

The doors and drawer faces were reattached to the cabinets and the bathroom had a whole new, updated look.

The mirrors were updated by adding small tiles to create a frame for the generic builder mirrors, (more on how to do this in a later post), and we are finished.

A new light fixture was added to the update. You can see it here, but it was hard to photograph.

An easy and affordable update for any bathroom and what a difference it makes!

The cabinets look as good today as the day the project was completed.
Here’s a quick view of the master bath completed on yet another weekend!

Stay tuned as we begin our exciting journey to the next house!

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