Rejuvenation Medicine Cabinet Paint Finished: The Bathroom Renovation Project 29

It's only taken me 5 months since Dan finished the bathroom construction, to finish painting the medicine cabinet door, and so that finally went up last weekend.

I think it got 4 or even 5 (very thin) coats of Benjamin Moore Advance, their new water-based alkyd paint. I have to say I still prefer oil-based paints for trim, and I did use an oil for the baseboards. But I tried a coat of the water-based Kitchen and Bath paint on the medicine cabinet first, and didn't like it at all as a trim paint, so I had to stick with a water-based paint for the successive coats, and chose this one.  It worked out quite well. It has enough of an open-ended dry time that it can be worked over, to get the brush lines even for trim, and it still levels acceptably, though not like oil. It doesn't have a sheen like oil, but it dries very hard and seems to be very washable so far.

The cabinet is from Rejuvenation (Chenowith). Capel nearly croaked when he saw the cost, but I feel like it was a good investment. Perhaps later I will do a post on relative costs and what seems worth putting money into. Suffice it to say we went with the very cheapest porcelain sink, cast iron tub and ceramic tile, because those classic materials are kind of fool-proof. We lucked out finding a half price top of the line Toto toilet. So in the end, we spent most of our materials budget on top of the line plumbing. And then this all-wood construction medicine cabinet, which was much more expensive than many non-wood or engineered wood options out there--it cost more than the toilet! But it is very well made, opens and closes like a dream, and looks like it grew there with the house. I'm very happy with our choices, so far.

And now spring is coming, and the room looks nice with the window open, curtains fluttering in the breeze.

So, one more thing done. The only things left to do are to 1) paint the plaster walls and ceiling and 2)  put in an oak threshhold when we take up the wall-to-wall hall carpet. Oh, and over time we will look in estate sales and antique shops out in Pennsylvania, where antiques can be more affordable, for two free-standing period pieces to serve as storage.

I still haven't decided about shoe molding. Given its age, the house originally would not have had it. It's been added in most but not all of the rooms since. So we went without here. But this photo shows how there are some little gaps in places between the tile and the bottom of the baseboard. Dan says shoe molding would cover those. Might go back and add. Would welcome comments.