Replace or paint bathroom base cabinets?

3 years ago

last modified: 3 years ago

I have 90" of oak builder grade cabinets in my primary bath: two 36" base cabinets with an 18" base cabinet between them. Since there's 0.5 inch trim on either side, the countertop measures 91".

The original plan was to have my painter put a fresh coat of white paint on the outdated oak, then replace the ugly laminate countertop. My contractor said it would be difficult for me to find a 91" premade countertop, so we decided to template for quartz.

But I can't wrap my brain around spending $2K on a countertop to cover builder-grade cabinets. (I must say that, although the cabinets are cheap, they are solid wood.)

What would you do?

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Comments (3)

Rho Dodendron
3 years ago
Use a less expensive material with builder grade solid wood cabinets or upgrade everything.
Decorating Ditz thanked Rho Dodendron
zuleikad
3 years ago
We did exactly what you're proposing on a vanity the same size and the result was a huge improvement. Our cabinets are old, but very sturdy and with lots of drawers. They'd already been painted when we bought the place. We swapped out the 40 year old laminate for a simple quartz, undermount sinks & new faucets., but left the white painted cabinets.

We spent $2k-ish on the counters, but for us it wasn't worth it to spend another $4k on new cabinets (not $8–12k!). They're fine. Not designer-showroom amazing, but like most people we don't have the money for something that fancy anyway.

Our RE agent raved and said if we'd been thinking about selling then, we'd make our money back. He agreed the cabinets were fine.
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Sue Wiliams
3 years ago
I’m in agreement with zuleikad. I just did the same in our master bath and guest bath. Our cabinets are 91” long with two sinks. It had light colored Carrera marble top and oak cabinets. The cabinets are 21 years old. I had someone stain them a dark expresso (looks beautiful but wouldn’t do it again-I now want light color cabs lol) I went to a fabrication shop where I was referred to and found a very nice quartz piece. I couldn’t believe he had over 100 pieces of stone to choose from. Someone needed a small piece to finish their kitchen so they had to buy a whole slab and I bought the remnant which was almost a full slab! And for $700! It was enough to do both my guest and master bath as well as my laundry room around the sink. Win-win! I bought all new hardware to set off the cabinets and tie in the new quartz top. I then tore down our 90” mirror that’s the builder grade type very long mirror. I bought 2 new mirrors, new vanity lights, new dark bowl type sinks with more contemporary bathroom sink hardware. It turned out fantastic, lots of compliments and wow looks! Oh, I did have a company who does roll outs make each cabinet have two rollouts on each side. I despise having to bend over and dig to find things in my bathroom and kitchen cabinets. So I have roll outs in every cabinet in our home. Well worth the money spent!