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Tiny Washroom - Big Job
Aug. 11th, 2010 07:58 pmAnother thing we can start that won't cost us anything while we're waiting on funds is the downstairs powder room.
This hideous 1970's wallpaper, and nasty vanity (matches the kitchen and upstairs bathroom - the previous owners tore it out of the master bath and the laundry). I suspect the cabinetry was all made on the cheap by the builder - they're just NOT nice, and mostly don't work.
We're going to replace the sink in the master bath - in a tiny bathroom with NO storage a pedestal sink just doesn't work. It will however work in a powder room. We'll swap the toilets (one downstairs is bisque, the one in the master bath is white to match the pedestal). It's all about repurposing what you have that's still good. Just because it doesn't work in a master bath, doesn't mean it won't fix another problem somewhere else. Never throw out anything till you're sure it can't be reused, recycled, sold or donated!
But first... the wall paper has to go.
Here we've stripped the wallpaper, washed the walls down well with TSP to remove the remaining glue. Thankfully they'd used pre-pasted paper and it had been up for 30 years, tearing it down was a cinch! We've pulled wallpaper before that was glued on with liquid nails and contact cement - not fun.
After patching and priming the walls a good undercoat of white was applied. Now for the 'fancy stuff'. We've taped the whole of the walls off in a 6"(+) 45° angle with 3/4" painters' tape. The result is a lattice pattern. We'll paint the whole thing in the cheery Country Cottage green that we have LOTS of (it just wasn't going to work in the master bedroom). When we pull the tape, we'll have a lovely white lattice on a cheery green background, and we can do some fun stuff with painting in vines and flowers around the lattice.
It's a small space no bigger than 4x6, the angles on the one wall made it tricky to work with. Even with VERY careful use of the speed square, a level with a 45° angle feature and careful pencil lines, it was very tricky getting the angles to all line up by the time they meet on the 4th wall. I wouldn't have wanted to try this with a bigger room!
James is complaining that the pattern is making him dizzy in a small space. Hopefully once we're finished the trimmings and shelves and vines and flowers on the lattice will break it up enough that he'll be alright with it. Otherwise I guess it'll be the upstairs bathroom for him!
One thing first though. Because rollering over the tape frequently lifts the edges slightly and you get 'bleeding' under the tape and it ends up looking ratty you need to fix the tape edges down.
There are a number of recommends for this. Some painters will go over the edges in a thin coat of clear polyurethane, some will use a brush to do a quick coat of the top colour over the edges of the paint to seal it. However, we've got a LOT of tape. So what we'll do is roller on a quick coat of the white undercoat - that way any bleeding will be in the same colour as is already underneath. Once that dries it'll seal the tape edges, and we can paint over it in our green.
Next time - we'll see how it all turns out
This hideous 1970's wallpaper, and nasty vanity (matches the kitchen and upstairs bathroom - the previous owners tore it out of the master bath and the laundry). I suspect the cabinetry was all made on the cheap by the builder - they're just NOT nice, and mostly don't work.
We're going to replace the sink in the master bath - in a tiny bathroom with NO storage a pedestal sink just doesn't work. It will however work in a powder room. We'll swap the toilets (one downstairs is bisque, the one in the master bath is white to match the pedestal). It's all about repurposing what you have that's still good. Just because it doesn't work in a master bath, doesn't mean it won't fix another problem somewhere else. Never throw out anything till you're sure it can't be reused, recycled, sold or donated!
But first... the wall paper has to go.
Here we've stripped the wallpaper, washed the walls down well with TSP to remove the remaining glue. Thankfully they'd used pre-pasted paper and it had been up for 30 years, tearing it down was a cinch! We've pulled wallpaper before that was glued on with liquid nails and contact cement - not fun.
After patching and priming the walls a good undercoat of white was applied. Now for the 'fancy stuff'. We've taped the whole of the walls off in a 6"(+) 45° angle with 3/4" painters' tape. The result is a lattice pattern. We'll paint the whole thing in the cheery Country Cottage green that we have LOTS of (it just wasn't going to work in the master bedroom). When we pull the tape, we'll have a lovely white lattice on a cheery green background, and we can do some fun stuff with painting in vines and flowers around the lattice.
It's a small space no bigger than 4x6, the angles on the one wall made it tricky to work with. Even with VERY careful use of the speed square, a level with a 45° angle feature and careful pencil lines, it was very tricky getting the angles to all line up by the time they meet on the 4th wall. I wouldn't have wanted to try this with a bigger room!
James is complaining that the pattern is making him dizzy in a small space. Hopefully once we're finished the trimmings and shelves and vines and flowers on the lattice will break it up enough that he'll be alright with it. Otherwise I guess it'll be the upstairs bathroom for him!
One thing first though. Because rollering over the tape frequently lifts the edges slightly and you get 'bleeding' under the tape and it ends up looking ratty you need to fix the tape edges down.
There are a number of recommends for this. Some painters will go over the edges in a thin coat of clear polyurethane, some will use a brush to do a quick coat of the top colour over the edges of the paint to seal it. However, we've got a LOT of tape. So what we'll do is roller on a quick coat of the white undercoat - that way any bleeding will be in the same colour as is already underneath. Once that dries it'll seal the tape edges, and we can paint over it in our green.
Next time - we'll see how it all turns out
