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Stripping wallpaper, painting, tile, redo of a 80's transitional era bathroom...
Ever have a project that lingers on you when you move into a new to you space? The bathroom was this god awful wall paper plastered nightmare straight out of a trailer house.
First & foremost...
We are 150% not professionals, and still accomplish stuff even if it takes forever and isn't of the pinterest perfect variety, so anyone can too -- and this blog is for you.
We have two bathrooms in the house, the half bath and the full bath which is the common area for guests, plus Andrew and myself. I got the inspiration to redo this bathroom when I was in my teens, thirteen years later l moved back into the familyesque 80's housing track home where I lived for two years when I was a hoodlum teenager. When I moved back into the house, I was immediately horrified at the beige salmon wallpaper, brown tile, and just damn everything in this bathroom. Long story short, I started tearing the wallpaper off one morning in January because I fucking had enough. Stripping the wallpaper was liberating af, and Andrew was mortified at what I had just started.
Originally, I just wanted to strip the walls and paint, but then that was partially done for a few weeks and the bathroom specifically looked like a run down abandoned house minus writing on the walls and hella trash.
Something needed to happen with the floors and fixtures, so I checked out how to refinish tile without replacing it and found this article which was an incredible resource for this project, we followed the steps other than the stenciling which they did on theirs. Removed the towel holders and other small fixtures, outlet covers, and cabinet doors just with a Phillips screwdriver, easy, pressure then wrench.
We took the mirror down with a power driver, and very carefully moved it to live in the family room for a few weeks. Sanded all of the wood on the cabinets/doors/mirror frame lightly, and stained all of the wood with a black varathane stain and foam brushes, stain takes ample time to dry so do this first.
Finished removing the wallpaper, there are instructions on the bottle of whatever kind you use, it is super important to pierce the paper, soak it, let sit for just a minute or so and then go to town on peeling it off.
After you are done with the wallpaper, figure out what color you want, we did bright white and an armyish green, all by Valspar, but luckily the bright white was all left over from painting the interior of our toy-hauler *re-purposed freebies*
Mask off anything you do not want paint on, we masked the door frames, and sanded those to stain actually after painting, so if any paint got on the door frames we could just sand it off; and so no stain would lift when we masked.
I got an extra thick masking tape, because I am not confident with painting. Mask, paint, second coat, and finishing touches.
We removed the moulding from the bottom near the floor before painting and replaced with a fancy kind from Lowes, Andrew measured and cut every piece to fit the bathroom, we spray painted the pieces with Krylon and let them dry, they look freaking awesome and fit perfectly tacked in with a nail gun.
Definitely paint before you move onto the floors or the moulding.
It gets more technical here...
For the floors you need Concrete and Masonry Bonding Primer, Porch & Patio Floor Paint, and Water-Based Interior Polyurethane. All essential. Finish stripping the wallpaper and all of your painting, sanding, remounting cabinets, and small fixtures before starting the floors. Please do this.
First, if you have fuzzy dogs (Kodiak is a Husky/German Shepard mix,) consider exiling them to a certain part of the house until the floor is done done; clean the hell out of the floors, find a tooth brush, get the microfiber cloth, clean it like five times, and then clean it again. Start in sections by blocking off tile, using a brush to prime the grout, edges, and all the cracks first, then use the paint pan and a wide roller to finish the middle sections. The primer will go on kind of milky and dry clear. After you do your first coat of primer, wait about an hour or two, do it again, do it again, and maybe again if you're not sure what you're doing.
Second, move onto your porch & patio paint after about a day of letting the primer dry, go through the same process that you did with the primer: EXILE, CLEAN, CLEAN, CLEAN.
After that, start going in sections again, around the grout lines, any cracks and edges, and then rolling on the paint to finish, I did three coats on my floors, with about three hours in between coats, and then some final finishing touches. Wait about another day to apply the polyurethane to seal.
Third, when applying the polyurethane go through -- yes, you guessed it, THE SAME PROCESS AGAIN. You will be very familiar with it by now, I promise. Apply about three times, if you're over cautious, let cure for twenty four hours before getting wet or using heavily. I waited a month or so until I started doing any risky business slides with it.
The floors have been done for about four months now, and they are holding up great, super easy to clean, and they look amazing. We were skeptical about
going with bright white, but it gives so much contrast to all of the other elements in the rooms.
We added some plants in black and green pots to give more life to the room, some other decorative baskets we had around the house, twinkle lights, a bad ass frame with pressed flowers and butterflies that I found in the back of the cabinet when I was cleaning it out (where did it come from I love it???) and finally the whole purpose of the aesthetic: some black and white imagery of WWI & WW2 tanks in floating frames (every room in the house has a historical theme...)
Materials Used & Where to Buy:
Walls
Various Razor Blades, Any Size, Laying Around the Garage, or Lowes
Painters Tape, The thickness you need depends on how good you are..., Lowes
Paint Rollers
Paint Brushes (Corners & Edges)
Painting Trays
Floors
Behr Premium Concrete and Masonry Bonding Primer, Home Depot
Clear Satin Water-Based Interior Polyurethane, Home Depot
Paint Rollers
Paint Brushes (For the Grout & Edges)
Painting Trays
Cabinets
1 qt. Black Classic Wood Interior Stain, Home Depot
Fine Grit Sandpaper, Any Size, Random Bits in the Garage, Lowes
Accessories
Bathroom Accessories Kit (One for Each Bathroom,) Amazon
YUUNITY Bathroom Shower Curtain, Amazon
Recap
If you have a wallpapered anywhere with tile that you want to give a makeover, these are the steps I loosely followed and it worked out really well for us:
Remove all towel racks, outlet covers, and small wares from the walls, remove your main mirror if you can, or mask around it.
Remove the wallpaper with wallpaper removal spray and razor blades or putty knives.
Take the cabinet doors off, take the main doors off, sand them lightly and either stain or repaint.
Remove moulding from the bottom edges, or whatever moulding you have that you want replaced.
Choose your paint of choice, get a paint/primer mix, mask all areas you do not want paint on, edges, around windows, shower, etc.
Paint edges, corners, main walls, second coat, any touch ups.
Start on the floors by cleaning tf out of them, base layers of the primer, then the porch patio paint, then the polyurethane, clean in between each step after about an hour or two of curing each coat. I did about threeish coats of each, and let cure twenty four hours before getting it wet or using the floor heavily, and they are holding up great.
Above there are links to the small wares I purchased, they are also holding up well, look really good, and feel like good quality products.
Total Time Committed
Like seven months off and on? We could have realistically gotten it done in a week, but jobs and time permitting, it just didn't happen that way. And the wall accessories are not even up yet because we came up with another project or went to the woods, and well... it's a work in progress.
Finalish Product
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