Bathroom Updates

Stage Two: The Vanity

Bathroom vanities can be updated in a variety of ways. Naturally if you are removing your old vanity you can simply choose one of many different styles and have it installed. But if you are working with what you already have, you are a bit more limited.

This isn’t anything new to this column; paint! Painting is always the least expensive and will produce the greatest change with the little effort. Some of the things you will want to consider is color and wood type. If you have 20-30 year old oak cabinets and haven’t ever painted because it’s ‘against the law’ in most minds to paint oak, just paint them; consider that if you really don’t like the oak anyway or are just plain tired of it, what difference does it make? If you could replace the vanity would you choose oak again? If not, I say go for it.

Dark colors over oak are the best as the grain will show through if there is enough light in the room. A rich dark espresso or black or a deep midnight blue, green or red that is almost black will look great on your lower cabinets and will help ground your room. If you want to experiment first take one of the cabinet doors off and paint the INSIDE to see if you like the look, that way if you don’t, you can remove it without disturbing the original finished look of the outside.

Another option for an update without removing your original cabinet is to replace the doors with new ones. Look on-line and make the measurements large enough to cover the frame of the old cabinet. Another thing you can do with plain cabinet doors is to add moldings to add a bit of interest. Make sure you scale the size of the molding to the size of the doors and drawers, keep it simple for the most elegant look.

You’ll probably want to replace your faucets, so make sure that the metal you use on your fixtures will match the metal you put on your newly painted cabinets. Years ago, oak cabinets didn’t have hardware, it just wasn’t in style, but painted cabinets will benefit from a little ‘bling’.

The vanity paint will need to coordinate with the mirror choice you’ve decided on. If the mirror is a new one and has a metal frame, you’ll want it to match the metal choice for the faucets and cabinet hardware. The same goes for the paint color of the mirror if that is what you decided to do.

Next time, I’ll discuss countertops.