My goal was a glossy white and black cabinet that would blend into our living room.

While researching painting the cabinet, I ran into web pages about vinyl foil used to change the color of cars, and wrap speaker cabinets. I bought a sample piece from the Internet (3M product 1080), made a miniature wooden piece with a similar shape to the backbox, and applied the vinyl over a sanding primer to test how it would turn out:

It turned out quite well (although despite careful sanding it did not hide all the structure of the wood).

After deciding to go with the foil, I discovered that I'd need a 2m piece to wrap the main cabinet in a single piece, but the foil rolls are only 152 cm wide, and I did not find a place willing to sell me a 2m wide x 40 cm strip. So I abandoned this plan and went with paint instead.

I painted the backbox first, to learn and test what worked.

I first painted the mask and inside of the front with matte black spray paint (not a good picture):

I did one attempt at painting the all of the outside of the backbox in one session, but it did not work out at all as well as a sample piece that I had painted. I realized that the result would be much better if I painted with each surface horizontal. However, then painting took much longer, because I could only paint one side at a time, and then wait for it to dry before doing the next side. I decided to paint the backbox outside and main cabinet outside at the same time to save time.