Bathroom process

Thank you so much for the nice comments on yesterday's bathroom reveal post! I love hearing from all of you. 

This post will be filled with all of the pics I took throughout the makeover process - feel free to skim haha.

Here's a wrap up of the entire process, start to finish.

Step 1 - The demo!

I removed the wall cabinet, old light fixture, vanity and sink, and the original ceramic towel bars, toilet paper holder, soap dish and toothbrush holder. I did all of the demo with a hammer, crowbar and drill.  If you haven't demo'd anything before - it's as fun as it looks on TV. This wasn't even a major demo (like the kitchen was!) but still, bashing off towel bars and whatnot with a hammer is awesome.

Here's the bathroom before demo....

And after...

Step 2 - The cleaning.

TSP for the walls and ceiling, Lysol scrub for the tile and floor and then a good spray of bleach for the whole bathroom. Then 24 hours to dry.

Step 3 - Wall prep and ceiling and wall paint.

I filled all the holes in the walls with spackle (I recommend the kind that goes on pink and turns white when it's dry!) and then used a palm sander to smooth everything out as much as I could.

Then, mainly because we had some leftover from when we painted the master bedroom, I went with Benjamin Moore Stonington Gray for the walls and ceiling. Since I knew I was going to be covering the wall tile with paneling, I thought having white on the ceiling, gray on the walls, and then another color on the panels would look choppy. Too many large blocks of color. So I painted the ceiling and walls one color.

Step 4 - New light fixture installation. 

I gotta tell you...every single light fixture I change in this house has a different set of wires. Sometimes there's a red wire, sometimes not. Sometimes there's a ground wire, sometimes not. So it's a whole new guessing game every time! I've changed out five light fixtures and each time I think, ok this one's only going to take me 15 minutes cause now I know what I'm doing. 

Not the case. *sigh* Oh well. 

I finally got the new fixture installed. This one was only $30 at Home Depot.

Much better than the old one!

I also installed the mirror at this time but shouldn't have. I had to take it back off in order to install the paneling....

Step 5 - New flooring!

Ooooh the flooring was a pain! Turned out great but ugh...it was a battle.

Installation was easy. It was the cutting that stunk.

A few comments on this flooring installation: This is when the project turned "temporary bathroom makeover" instead of "permanent bathroom renovation". I knew I was going to use this flooring, but I also knew that you aren't supposed to install it over a tile floor. This is not because it will harm your existing floor - it just "voids the lifetime warranty" because it might not stay put forever. Installation instructions on the box say that you have to install it directly to a plywood subfloor. I ignored these instructions and thus, voided the lifetime warranty :) 

I am not usually this type of DIYer. I always want to do things right, follow instructions and install properly. But in this case, the bathroom wasn't getting ANY worse and I really didn't care if the flooring failed after a year. At less than $2 a tile, it was just a fun project to try out. 

And so far...it's working! No grout cracks, looks great. 

Win, win.

I promise to tell you if it starts to peel or something weird.

Moving on to step 6!

Gettin' rid of all that pink! And the "burnt sienna" trim. Blech. 

Pink tile can be vintage and charming. But pink tile with reddish brown trim? With brown/yellow grout?? No way.

I decided to go with vinyl paneling because of the moisture factor in a bathroom. Wood probably would have been fine but I just wasn't sure. 

Installing the paneiling reminded me of putting up drywall - just in the putting-together-pieces-of-a-puzzle kind of way. Having to cut out around all of the existing obstacles.

So. How did I install it?

Elmer's!!

Kidding. Kidding.

I used six tubes (SIX TUBES!) of paneling construction adhesive.

The adhesive instructions said to rough up glossy surfaces so I used the palm sander directly on the tile. It didn't work. I couldn't believe how strong the tile was! So I was really skeptical that the adhesive would hold.

But it did! Phew!

I used masking tape for added support between the panels and on the rough edges.

Then things got a little crazy.........

I realized that on one seam, the outside corner trim piece I bought wouldn't cover the rough edges because I had cut the panels too short. And already glued them to the walls (of course!) And Home Depot didn't have a larger outside corner trim piece (PANIC!!)

Offending edge...

Genius solution...

(I did not come up with this solution - as I mentioned in my last post, I saw the idea of using dowels as trim for beadboard on Thrifty Decor Chic's blog.)

So I glued on a skinny strip of paneling (actually about 10 1" pieces of paneling - they are interlocking).

And after letting the small panels dry, I removed the tape and glued in the dowels.

Then I ran into issues at the top of the dowel/panel pieces mess....

It took some serious brain power to figure out all of the angles to go around a curve with trim.

Enter coping saw....

I ended up having to carve out the "guts" of a couple of pieces of trim so that they would fit seamlessly over the dowels.

Action shots... oh yeah.

Finally getting this right is my proudest moment of the bathroom makeover.

That and this cut around the toilet water line haha.

Step 7 - Caulking every little crevice.

Gotta make it seamless!

For example.....

Before caulk...........

And after.....

So at this point, I had been thinking I was going to paint the paneling white and call it a day. But Ed kept mentioning how much he wanted a dark shower curtain. Over and over again. 

I know Ed.... there's a reason why he does these things.

You tryin' to tell me something dear?

So I finally asked him, "Are you thinking it's too white and bright in here?" 

"Yes...."

And since it's his bathroom (it's the master bathroom but I use the one in the hallway) I definitely wanted him to love it!

But what color to use??? I already had light gray on the walls so I needed something to match and it had to be dark. Dark colors usually scare me - I can't commit to anything very bold. Benjamin Moore website to the rescue! I looked up the wall color and saw this...

"Goes great with 'Stampede'" you say? Excellent! I ran the color by Ed and he said "LOVE!" hahahahaha

Eek!

The first coat kinda had that whole baby poo thing going on....

But the second coat turned into a dark rich grayish brown. It really boosted the look of the vinyl (....plastic....) panels.

What was that... Step 8? Is anyone still reading this rambling post? Bueller?

Step 9 - MORE caulk.

To seal the edges of the trim and create a pretty white line between the Stampede and the Stonington Gray, I taped everything off ---again--- and finished caulking the bathroom.

Step 10 - Install vanity, hang shower curtain and add one of Ed's favorite posters.

Ok that's more than one step. But a bathroom makeover in 10 steps sounds better :)

A comment on the shower curtain - another request (requirement?) from Ed: In addition to needing a darker bathroom, Ed said absolutely no white shower curtain. Not even white with a pattern on it. I wanted to put something softer (prettier!!) in there so bad! But again - his bathroom.  So I came home with the stripes - a pattern yes but almost zero white and I thought a solid color would be WAY too blah. A slight compromise :)

And that's it!

Thanks again for following along!!