January 18th, 2009 – Painting the Bathroom
Back in November, when Luke and I bought the house, bought a bunch of paint at Home Depot.
The only rooms in the house that were painted were completely icky.
The kitchen was this awful peach color. I found the paint can the other day. The color was called “Apricot Glow”.
Luke’s room was pink. Well…it’s still pink but it has a swatch of the gray that I intend to paint it at some point.
Every other room was builder’s grade eggshell white. Yay personality.
After painting the kitchen and the accent area above the fireplace a beautiful deep chocolate brown, the half bath downstairs was next.
Last weekend, I removed the cabinet from the wall. This was not a smart thing for me to do by myself, but I wanted it done. It’s one of those big kitchen cabinets; about 3×3.5 and all kinds of heavy.
A few weeks ago, i replaced the faucet from the builder’s grade crap to a pretty brushed metal classic faucet.
Here’s the old one….
Here is the new one…
The other day I picked up a cheap mirror at Ross. The gold color wouldn’t have worked in the bathroom but a little spray paint fixed that right up.
Here is the original mirror:
All taped up an nowhere to go:
Spray painted (no I didn’t paint it on the couch):
The final product:
Once the paint dried, I used steel wool to dull the surface and bring some of the original finish back. It came out pretty well. I need to put a coat of clear coat on it before I put it in the bathroom.
The old mirror obviously needed to come down. This proved to be a challenge. I took off the clips but apparently they were decorative because the mirror was attached to the wall with what I can only assume was some kind of super top secret government grade adhesive. Probably the same stuff they used to keep little Georgie’s mittens attached to his coat.
Old mirror aka My Nemesis:
I realized that I would need to pry the mirror off the wall. What to use…what to use….
Screwdriver? No…not flat/long enough
Butterknife? Hmmm…pretty flat and long but not very flexible. Oh, I tried it but it didn’t do much.
Think..think…
Oh yes. You are a genius.
Offset spatula.
It was at this point that I realized that as I was prying the mirror off the wall
; there was a good chance that it would shatter and leave me somewhat bloody and lacerated.
Safety first!
I used duct tape to cover the mirror in a lattice pattern. If the mirror did break, the duct tape would have kept it from shattering and flying in my non glass shard friendly face. I was too intent on the task at hand to take a picture, but you get the idea.
It took quite awhile to get the right leverage to start pulling the adhesive away. By this point, I was boiling hot because I was 2 inches away from the lights. I would have turned them off, but then…well….it would have been dark.
i did burn my arm on one of the light-bulbs but it only got a little red.
At last, I heard the distinctive sound of paper ripping. I had to force myself to apply slow steady pressure rather than yank the spatula.
There was some breakage, but not too much. I didn’t intend to keep the mirror so it’s not a big deal at all.
The adhesive tore the paper off the drywall, but again; I am not concerned. Another mirror will be going over that spot so I did not bother to patch the drywall.
The bathroom was fully prepped for paint. I hate prepping to paint, but it saves so much time/hassle that it is worth it.
It took a lot of moving about to not only prep, but paint the room. It’s a small under the stair half bath so the ceiling is angled. I needed to use a ladder to reach the higher places but didn’t have a lot of room to manipulate the ladder within the bathroom. This meant a lot of stretching and cursing.
At anyrate, the first coat is finished. I’ll do a second coat tomorrow.
This is the ceiling with the angled wall. Yes, I know how to cut in without the help of painter’s tape but the tape makes it easier.
This is a pretty crappy picture.
Right now, the bathroom appears to be very dark and overwhelmingly green. I am reserving judgment however because nothing has been put back in the bathroom yet. The cabinet will be painted a seashell color which will brighten up the dark area quite a bit.
The mirror will also help.
The previous accessories (soap dish, towel ring, toity paper holder) are a black wrought iron. I intend to seashell them as well.
I think that when it is all finished, it will be very nice.
For now, I am very hurty (and a bit smelly) but I’m proud of what I accomplished today.
I kind of forgot to eat after my migraine went away (I can’t eat while I have a migraine; it’s like throwing food directly in the toity).
Luke and I had “bad for us” food for dinner and now I’m snacking on some almonds.
I just realized that it is almost 1am. I really should go to bed.