Painting a toilet seat

Our toilet seat (white painted wood) was badly stained and worn. I followed the procedure here, using similar products from the same manufacturer (cost for spray primer and paint under $10 altogether), and repainted it.

I used a separate primer, and did two coats of that first, followed by three coats of paint. I missed the part where she said she used gloss paint; I used semi-gloss.

Lessons learned:

1.  Beware of modern innovations; I had to look online to find out how to even get our particular model of toilet seat off the toilet. One you know the magic secret, it is very easy. Without the magic secret, you can't do it without breaking pieces of the hinges. (We have windows like that too, here.)

2.  Once the seat is off, expect some fun cleaning, especially if you have multiple boys.

3.  Pulling off the bumper pads on the seat was no problem (with a small flat screwdriver); they have plastic pegs on the back side that slide into holes.

4.  I was hoping to be able to remove the hinges so I could lay both seat and lid flat for painting at the same time, but the screws were too corroded for me to feel confident about doing that. I ended up putting the whole thing on its side, alternating the sides from one coat to the next.

5.  Primer and paint will not really fill in any rough spots; better sand these well beforehand.

6.  Don't overcoat the area around the hinges trying to get every last bit covered. Don't worry if the white plastic hinges get painted; they will still work.

7.  Thin coats dry a lot faster.

8.  The paint is very white, and it is a cooler white. My bathroom, between toilet, seat, tub, baseboards, counter, and toilet paper, has six different whites going on in one small area, and now this new white sticks out a bit. I think I can live with that, but I'm sure that some people cannot.


EDITED TO ADD:  In use, the new paint job was pristine for about three weeks, and then started wearing away in the same way the original paint had.  I gave the underside of the seat new coats of  spray paint in October, which went quite quickly and easily compared to the work I did above.  Paint isn't the most durable, but it is relatively easy to refresh.