Floral wallpaper...enough said--Laundry Room & Bathroom Phase II

The half bath

Ahhhh yes the sweet smell of construction dust and home renovations!! As you can see from the previous posts Dear Reader we are making progress in our new house by renovating the laundry room and bathroom...the office/bedroom will be next. So we have entered into Phase II of the 200 sq ft renovation, the small half bath.

As you can see....it needs MAJOR updating....and yes that is floral metallic wallpaper on every inch of the bathroom. The toilet is on a marble slab (I guess they REALLY wanted a 'thrown' feel to the bathroom!!!) and that vanity looks like the original 1977 version.

Yes that's the same sorry excuse for carpet that had dog pee all over it in the laundry room....and the inside of the builder stock medicine cabinet is all gross. What you don't see in these pics is the exhaust fan/light which is SCARY!!! There are no other lights in this room and no towel racks etc. About the only thing worth keeping is the toilet which is in better shape than any of the other toilets in the house for that matter!!

Originally Sam and I were just going to just do the tile and paint....but since we were already ripping everything else out why not just rip out the sink, vanity, and toilet....not to mention get new baseboards, light fixtures, and medicine cabinet??? So that's what we did.

The dated vanity

Here's the plan for the bathroom:

1. New vanity/sink
2. Paint (walls/ceiling/doors)
3. Tile
4. New medicine cabinet/mirror
5. Paint ceiling
6. New light fixtures
7. New baseboards
8. Remove marble slab
9. Towel rack
10. Deep clean

Estimated cost of reno:

$100.00 vanity/sink
$50.00 light fixtures
$50.00 medicine cabinet
$50.00 paint
$20.00 new baseboards
$10.00 towel rack

Cost of tile/tile supplies already figured into the laundry budget and the cleaning/labor are of course free :).

So the first step was trying to figure out how to take the wall paper down. Neither Sam or I had any idea how this who process would go....we started rubbing warm water on it so it would peel off....that didn't work. Then we tried just peeling it off one section at a time...that didn't work. So then we decided drastic times call for drastic measures....we would simply retexturize the wall rather than trying to peel off the wall paper.

A closer look at the wall paper

This was my original idea but Sam vetoed it because he thought it would be too much work....but quickly changed his mind when it was becoming apparent that peeling off the paper 1 cm at a time was the only other way to take it off!!!

Sam sent me to Lowes....for the millionth time this week....to get retexturizer. I asked the guys at Lowes what all I needed to do this and the guy said all I needed was one can of spray paint style retexturizer which would cover "at least" 100 sq feet all for a $14.00 price tag.

So I got the retexturizer and while I was there Sam wanted me to get drywall mud and tape because when we took the vanity out there was a giant 8x8 hole in the wall....one can only guess as to how this hole was made from under the sink but at any rate, I asked the guy where to find the drywall stuff and he's like well what are you trying to fix?  I explained about the hole to him and said I already had the actual drywall sheets at home and only needed the tape and mud. He's like....oh NO NO NO you just need this little thing here and he produces an 8x8 piece of self adhesive mesh. Apparently all one needs to patch said hole is this $8.00 produce and a lot of spackling.....I tried to explain that my husband told me what I needed and I was fairly sure that the little mesh wiring was NOT it. But he was convincing so I bought it and left without the mud and tape.

While I was at Lowes I decided to get the new sink and sink hardware for the bathroom. Sam and I were going to put a vanity in there agreed since it was only a half bath and it was small to begin with we would do a pedestal sink instead. I was amazed when I saw the sink at Lowes for only $44.00!!! What luck right....then I got to thinking....does it come with hardware????

The gutted bathroom

I asked the sales guy if the hardware came with the sink like the display....I thought this was a legit question....he looked at me like I was Paris Hilton on a volunteer mission and almost started laughing. He's like can you repeat the question......a few giggles later he explained that I would need to buy the hardware separately.

Good LORD sink hardware is EXPENSIVE!!!!! Sure the sink is only $44.00.....but the hardware was $130.00!!!! Yes there were others that we not as expensive but I wanted a certain style and finish....and actually the one I picked out wasn't nearly as expensive as some of the other ones!!! I was equally horrified by the cost of towel racks/bars too!!! $20.00 for a cheep one!! I picked up an updated/designer medicine cabinet while I was there and some new trim and then headed down to lighting.

Lighting was surprisingly not as expensive as one might think....at least for the kind I picked out. I found a  nice pendulum light with a blown glass 'shade' thing which will go PERFECTLY in the bathroom. In my mind I thought that the exhaust fan thing in the bathroom was optional and could be moved easily....I don't know what I was thinking!! So I paid for my treasures and asked the Lowes people if they were able to help me load up my 'beast'. They were like sure if you want to wait 45 mins we are backed up....I decided I could probably manage the sink by my self....or at least I hoped I could :).

I did load the sink in the beast without incident (thank GOD) and drove home to show Sammy all my treasures and show him I found an easier way to do the drywall and retexturizer!!! As luck would have it Sam was at a football game so I could surprise him by retexturizing the bathroom so we could paint Sat morning :).



100 sq ft coverage my ass!!!!

This was IT!!! One can, $14.00

covered this small part of the wall!

 I opened my spray texturizer that I was promised would cover a minimum of 100 sq ft.....and about 3 mins later I was out of retexturizer.....I was only able to cover a VERY VERY VERY small section of the wall before I ran out. What a waste of $14.00!!!!!!!!!!!!

So after all the shopping I couldn't really do anything with my new found treasures....I could only really paint the door and can I just say how tired I was of painting the doors and trim!!! Ya BORING!!! So the next morning Sam was home and he had a good laugh about the spray retexturizer stuff and we decided that we would just put drywall mud over the wall paper and primer the *(&*(+@# out of the walls and paint over the floral nightmare. Sam is like "I'm glad you got that drywall mud already"!!  

About that point he stops short and pulls out the wire mesh thing and looks at me kind of like "WTF what is this and where is the drywall stuff"???? I explained that the guy told me I only needed that little mesh thing and some spackle to fix the hole....I thought Sam was going to DIE of laughter. He's like WTF is this and who told you that you needed this???? He's like ok I'm going to Lowes and I will get what I need.

More wall paper

So about an hour later Sam comes back with the drywall mud and tape and quickly patches the hole in the wall and begins retexturizing the walls himself. It was going fairly quick and he was about done when I noticed a little stray piece of wall paper in the door jam. So I thought I would just rip it off.....well when I pulled that little piece of paper the entire wall of floral paper came peeling right off like it was nothing!!! Sam and I just looked at each other like WTF?!?!?!

Apparently the drywall mud was wet enough that it made the paper ready to peel off. So Sam's like "for the love of God DON'T TOUCH ANYTHING"!!!!! Eventually the drywall stuff dried and no more paper peeled off and we are now ready to pain this weekend. We opted for a light gray color to brighten up the bathroom and compliment the tile and the other rooms that are also gray so the 'flow' of the rooms will work well with this color.

About that time I look up at the ceiling and see Sam took the fan thing off....and I'm like WTF why is there a hole there?!?! Sam explained that he got a new exhaust fan and the fixture would cover it....I told him I already got a light for this and asked if we could cover the hole...he's like well you can't just NOT have a fan in the bathroom.....we now have to find and alternate place for the hanging pendulum light since Sam insists on having a fan in the bathroom damn him :).

So then I brought out my medicine cabinet and he's like...umm is this a recess cabinet??? It can be either recessed or not.....the old one was recessed so there was a hole already cut for it.....Sam's like did you measure the opening and cabinet to be sure they will fit??? 

Bathroom door



???!!!!! NOPE.

So the cabinet it about 2 in too big for the already cut opening....and there's a stud blocking the 2 in that we need. Sam's like I need to buy a saw-zaw (sp???) to cut through the stud to fit the cabinet. Now we have EVERY tool known to man except a tile saw and a saw-zaw and I was NOT about to go out and buy some stupid tool we are going to use once for this a 2 in discrepancy.....my solution.....sand the 2x4 stud down with the hand held sander. 

The bathroom &
recessed cabinet opening



Sam looked at me like I was nuts!!! So instead he picks up his hand held circular saw and cut through (sort of) the stud....it's still a little small but the saw was effective....our over all solution to the too large medicine cabinet....it will fit but it will never come out and should the day come when we want to replace it we feel like we will surly have a saw-zaw by then and it won't matter because we will just cut it out LOL :).

So that was how we left things as of Sunday...the rest of this week we have come home and worked on the tile and finishing the paint. Tonight we hope and tomorrow we hope to finish the bathroom.....

We are a little behind schedule with the bathroom....we still have not painted, put the sink in, put the toilet back, installed the exhaust fan and pendulumlight, installed the trim, and we haven't put the medicine cabinet in. We HAVE tiled in there though so the other stuff should be cake right?!?!? LOL :) This weekend we should be done and I will be sure to post pics and a final cost soon so be watching Dear Reader....stay tuned for the final phase of the laundry room/bathroom renovation :)