Painting a Wood Vanity Black

Remove any doors and drawers from your vanity and put them on a drop cloth. Working on the doors and drawers separately will make it easier to paint all sides of them and around drawer openings on the vanity.

Use a piece of 120-grit sandpaper to sand the entire surface of your vanity and its removed pieces. If the vanity has chipped parts, you will need to use a coarser sandpaper. The higher the grit on your sandpaper, the more coarse it is. Once you have sanded the entire surface, wipe everything down with a damp cloth to remove dust and debris.

Apply a coat of acrylic water-based primer to your vanity and its doors and drawers. Consider using a tinted primer because your top coat will be black. Most hardware stores will prepare a primer that is tinted toward your black paint, resulting in a gray primer. Tinted primers are an ideal option for dark top coats, as traditional white primer is more apt to show through. Use a roller to add the primer to large surfaces and a small brush to get into cutouts or inside corners. Let the primer dry for approximately 2 hours.

Add the first coat of black paint to the vanity and its pieces. If your vanity is in a bathroom, which tends to be exposed to high levels of humidity, use an enamel paint or gloss paint that can withstand moisture. Use a roller to apply the paint in a thin coat, working in a "W" formation as you paint. Apply paint to decorative cutouts using a brush. Allow the first coat of paint to dry for the time recommended by the manufacturer. Because you are applying black paint, it is unlikely that one coat will be enough for complete coverage.

Apply a second coat of black paint using the same technique as you employed previously. Let the paint dry completely before you reassemble the doors and drawers, or the paint on these pieces will stick to the paint on the body of the vanity. If possible, leave the drawers and doors on the drop cloth overnight.