Thursday, August 29, 2013

bathroom transformation....part one

My big project of the summer is done.....for now.

I may need to make a couple other changes, but hopefully those can wait until next summer.

Two reasons:  money and time.  
No shocker, right? Isn't that really why most people put off home projects?

Here is what my bathroom looked like back in the fall of 2009...

Sorry....this is the best picture I had taken when I first moved into my house.
Notice the fabulous hideous WOODEN switchplates.
Yeah, they matched the cabinets.
Awesome.

 
The most I could do to the bathroom at this point was use what I had in my old apartment bathroom....I literally spent nothing on it at this point.
 
And it stayed this way until last summer when I changed the faucet out.
This was the first step to developing my vision of a new look to my bathroom...
 
Look closely and you'll notice the WOODEN handle on the old faucet.
Seriously, wood must have been hugely popular in the late 80's interior decorating.
 
Now...onto this summer's changes!
 
I had considered keeping my old mirror up and framing it, like I've seen on Pinterest so many times.  However, after researching it I thought it seemed like more work than my skills would be able to complete.  So, after a trip to a home improvement store, I found a great framed mirror that was the right size, the right color, and the right price.
In fact, I had a gift card that covered the cost of the mirror- so the price was FREE.  :)
 
The first step was to take down the old mirror.
After reading up online for tips on how to do this, I was a little hesitant to do it myself.
But....I decided to go for it.
 
I prepared for the worst case scenario and duct-taped up that bad boy first....
 
 
I don't know if you can tell, but I also taped flattened cardboard boxes over the sink/counter top.

 
Of course, I couldn't take pictures of the process of taking off the mirror itself.  I was a tad busy....well, taking down the mirror and hoping not to drop it.
 
My sister came over to help.  This is of course not a job for one person!
Luckily, the mirror wasn't glued to the wall, so all we had to do was loosen the screws on those plastic hanger thingys.  We started with the top ones, and only had to slightly loosen the bottom ones before simply lifting the mirror off the wall.
 

 
After taking out the screws, I found that there were anchors in the wall and researched the best way to get them out.  Since I couldn't pull them out, I placed a flat head screwdriver over the anchor, and lightly tapped the anchor until it actually "sank" into the wall.

Which of course.....left some huge holes in my wall.
 
 
 
And this led to a trip to Home Depot....one of many trips I made there this summer.
This time was for a spackling paste.
I loved this one because of the color-changing property. 


It starts out pink.....and when it's white, it's ready to be sanded.
 
Which of course, I didn't take a picture of because really how exciting is it to see someone sanding white spackling on a white wall?
 
So, after prepping the wall my next step was to wash all of the walls, the ceiling, and the cabinet.
 
Just like my kitchen cabinets, I didn't have any hardware on the doors and drawers and the color was definitely not my style.

 
So I took the drawers out, the doors off, and cleared everything out of the bathroom.
Always a fun task- emptying cupboards.
Luckily, a couple weeks before I had gone through and decluttered in here so it was pretty organized.

 
I had set up a table in my dining room as a painting station, but once I started sanding I realized it would be too messy to do inside.

 
So out on my deck I went....and I used fine-grained sandpaper to roughen up the drawers and both sides of the doors.


 
After wiping down the sanded pieces, I brought them in and set them up on these little cuties I read about on some blog.....they're called Painter's Pyramids.
They're supposed to allow you to paint both sides of something without waiting for it to dry.
I'll talk more about that later.

 
Here's what I used to paint the cabinet-- Behr Premium Plus (with the paint and primer in one) in semi-gloss enamel...I think the color was called "Thick Chocolate". 

 
So, I put the first coat on everything, including the frame of the cabinet (below).

 
And here's what happened when I let it dry and flipped over the doors.
 
I guess those pyramids moved around a little when I was painting the other side because there were these little "scratches" on the flip side.

 
So for the second coat, I let one side dry before flipping it over to paint the other.
I guess the pyramids are good for holding up something to let it dry on all sides, but when you have the possibility of it moving around and getting scratched up, I would suggest waiting.

 
Here's what it looked like after Day One.  Two coats are on the cabinet, all of the outlet/switch plates are taken off, as well as all of the other things on the walls (towel rods/rings/hooks) and painters tape is ready for Day Two.
 
Which.....will of course be part two....coming soon!  :)

0 comments:

Post a Comment