Refinishing a Vintage Solid Steel Medicine Cabinet

We believe this is the original or close to the original medicine cabinet. It is made out of steel, and the craftsmanship is amazing. The problem is that it has been haphazardly painted - multiple times. Someone painted it with a brush using latex paint and looks pretty bad.

This will be the first step in renovating this bathroom.

The only way I can think of to fix this is to strip all of the paint off of it down to the bare steel and start from scratch. I'm using a citrus paint stripper and a razor scraper. 

It took 4 applications of paint stripper and a lot of scraping and mineral spirits, but I finally got all of the paint off. I sanded it by hand with 220 grit and now it's ready to be sprayed with primer and then painted. I have a lot more to do in here, so the mirror is going to stay like this until I finish some other things so the new paint job doesn't get messed up.

After the cabinet was thoroughly washed and dried I applied an oil based metal primer and then lightly sanded it.

I used a thick enamel paint and applied 2 light layers with a brush. I was careful not to leave any brush strokes. For the third and final layer I used a 4 inch roller for smooth surfaces.

It now looks brand new inside and out. It made a huge mess, but sometimes you have to be willing to create a mess to get the finished product you want.