Think Twice About Painting Your Bathroom Cabinets Before Checking This

Bathroom remodels can get expensive fast, so a lot of people like to find some DIY ways to spruce up the look instead. Paint is an easy, affordable way to completely transform the appearance and mood of a room or a piece of furniture. However, before you paint over your bathroom cabinets, check to see what they're made of first. If the cabinets are wood, painting is not an option.

Bathrooms experience extreme fluctuations in humidity, which can negatively impact everything from medications to photographs. It's for this reason that certain items are recommended to be kept in cool, dry places — something the bathroom is not. In and of itself, paint is fine to use in a bathroom – particularly an antimicrobial variety or one formulated to prevent mildew. Similarly, wood can be used in a bathroom too, though it can warp if subjected to extended contact with water. Unfortunately, when paint is applied to wood, hot and humid environments are far from ideal.

Paint is an incredibly versatile design tool with dozens of applications and infinite color possibilities. Unfortunately, in the high-humidity environment of the bathroom, paint and wood simply don't mix. In times of high humidity, such as during a shower, wood will expand. Then, when the humidity drops back down, the wood will contract. When this happens on wood that's been painted, the paint will peel and crack. It's not meant to be subjected to those types of atmospheric changes. In a matter of days, your new bathroom look could be completely ruined.

Unlike paint, which sits on top of your wood items, stains are absorbed into the wood. As the wood expands or contracts, the stain works along with it. It's become part of the wood and, therefore, is the optimal choice for any wooden items that are going in your bathroom. And as wood stains now come in a wider variety of colors than ever before, you can create almost any kind of new design for your pieces.