Bathroom Redo

A couple weeks ago our little boy went to spend the week at Oma & Opa's house with his cousin. While more sensible parents would have used this time to go out partying and having morning sex, we instead decided to redo our bathroom which was in serious need of some attention. (Truth be told we did stay up late, go to a show, sleep in, get massages and go out to an amazing dinner at Woodberry Kitchen too.)

So the walls in here were cracking a lot all over and we had a problem with mold growing on part of the wall. We'd wash it with bleach and it would go away for months and slowly creep back up. With no exhaust ventilation and layers matte paint, plaster and wall paper, the combination was not aging well. You can't see so well in this before shot, but that wall straight ahead is not doing so well.



So we got to scraping and I worked away removing the loose bits and discovering multiple layers of wall paper and other unknown substances below. We sealed off the door with plastic to contain everything so as not to get lead out and about in the house.  That also keeps all airflow out and so major muggy sweaty yuckiness ensued.



We could have stopped here and just gone for the post war torn Bosnian bathroom motif, but onward we went anyway.  Little A decided to paint the cheap looking wood finish cabinets and the brass light fixture white. It would take a few coats to get there. Kilz on the walls, Kilz on the under sink cabinet. After we got everything primed we painted a light blue on the drywall walls surrounding the shower and decided that the war torn walls required a textured finish to hide the mess I made chipping off all the loose stuff. Getting it smooth again would have been pretty near impossible and given our tight schedule and fondness for textures this was clearly the way to go.



We used joint compound with trowels and scrapers to create a random Tuscan Plaster like effect. Your not really supposed to use joint compound over plaster but I figured a couple coats of kilz over the painted plaster and crossing my fingers would be a foolproof course of action. (If it fails we will be calling in the pros next time.)




Little A picked up a new BIG mirror for the vanity as we had one of those cheapo depot ones that is the ugly brown wood and triptych divided mirror doors on it. So his one has no storage but we have another storage unit over the loo and are keeping bits and pieces in there. Painted all the textured areas an almost-white-but-slightly-blue color and got everything done it time (barely) to go pick up our boy and get back to the normal routine. It's hard to take pictures of our little bathroom but here are a couple completed shots. The big mirror does help in that regard!