"The particle board substrate is swelling, that is water damage 100%." If your vanity has a puffy bottom edge under the sink, no paint or new door fixes it, and anyone who offers to paint over it is selling you a finish that will peel. If the box is sound and just dated, refacing or painting is the cheaper path to a new-looking bathroom. Which one you have is a two-minute look. Cori from Cabinet Transformer, a family-owned Dallas company, opens the sink base first, checks for swelling, then prices whatever the vanity actually needs: new doors, paint or a rebuild. The visit is free. Call (469) 281-7313.
Water runs off the counter edge or leaks under the sink for years, and the particle board puffs up and never goes back down.
Cori opens the sink base and checks it first. If the box has swollen, it gets repaired or rebuilt. Nobody paints over it.You got a quote to reface a small vanity and saw a whole new one at the store for less.
For a basic single vanity, a new one can be cheaper. For a double vanity or built-in bathroom cabinets that are solid, refacing or paint usually wins. The quote tells you which.Someone painted the vanity, and within months the finish was bubbling near the sink.
The crew takes the doors and hardware off, degreases and sands every surface, and primes with a commercial-grade primer before any topcoat.
Bathroom vanities are the one place in the house where cabinets sit next to water every day, and particle board and MDF swell when they get wet. Once they swell, they do not go back. So the first thing Cori does is open the sink base and look at the floor and bottom edges. A sound box can be refaced or painted. A swollen one needs repair or a rebuild, and she will tell you that before she quotes anything else.
A lot of builder vanities are two doors over a sink with one shelf nobody can reach. Refacing and paint keep the box as it is. The vanity will look new and store exactly what it stores now. If storage is the real problem, that is custom bathroom cabinetry: Cabinet Transformer converts shelves to drawers and adds features as part of its custom work. Cori measures the vanity and tells you what the space can take.
Sometimes, for a small single vanity. Not for a long double vanity with a granite top you are keeping, or a bathroom with a linen tower and built-in cabinets to match. The only way to know is a quote next to the store price.
Vanities get priced after someone has looked under the sink. What moves the number:
| Condition of the box | A sound box is refaced or painted. A swollen one needs repair or rebuilding first. |
|---|---|
| Size | A single vanity, a double vanity, a linen tower, or all the cabinets in the room. |
| Refacing or painting | New doors and drawer fronts cost more than painting the ones you have. |
| Hardware | New pulls and hinges, supplied and installed. |
| More than one bathroom | Doing two bathrooms, or a bathroom and the kitchen, in one visit. |
The visit is free, and you get the number before Cori leaves.
The primary bathroom in a 1990s or 2000s Plano, Carrollton or Far North Dallas house almost always has the same builder vanity: a long double run of raised-panel doors in honey oak or a cherry stain, a cultured-marble or granite top, a big plate mirror and beige tile. The tops are usually fine. The doors are what date the room, which makes these vanities good candidates for refacing or paint.
Older ranch houses in Lake Highlands and Richardson tend to have shorter vanities, about 30 inches tall, which some people find too low. Refacing and paint keep the height as it is; changing the height is a rebuild. Say so at the consultation.
Say what the kitchen looks like and what bothers you about it. (469) 281-7313, or the form on this site.
Free in-home consultation. She opens the doors, checks the boxes, measures, and shows you real color and door samples.
Nobody asks you to sign that day. If paint would do the job, or the boxes are too far gone for either, she tells you.
Doors and hardware come off, everything is degreased, sanded, primed and topcoated, then reassembled and inspected.
Paint peels in bathrooms when it goes on over a glossy or dirty surface with no bonding primer, and then steam gets behind it. The prep is the protection: doors off, every surface degreased and sanded, commercial-grade primer, then topcoats, then everything reinstalled and inspected.
Height is set by the box. Changing it means rebuilding the vanity, not refacing it.
If the kitchen is being painted, the bathroom can be quoted in the same color at the same visit. See should you paint bathroom cabinets to match the kitchen.
Ask for the quote in writing and read what is included before you agree. The people who do the work are named: Cori, Colby and Charles.
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Reface or paint when the box is sound and you only dislike how it looks. Replace or rebuild when the box is swollen from water or the vanity is the wrong size or height for how you use it.
That changes the height of the countertop and the plumbing connections, so it is a rebuild rather than a refinish. If water keeps reaching the bottom of the vanity, find out why first, usually a leak at the drain or water running off the counter edge.
Strip or sand off the loose paint, degrease, sand, prime with a bonding primer and then topcoat. If the particle board itself has swollen, painting will not hold; that part has to be repaired or replaced.
Refacing keeps the box and the countertop and changes the doors and drawer fronts. Replacing changes everything, including the top. If the box is sound and the top is staying, refacing is usually the better spend.
Cori looks under the sink first, then tells you what the vanity needs. The visit is free.