House Rennovations: Master Bath

When we moved to what I (tried to) affectionately call our little country cabin, it was only supposed to be for a couple of years until we could build a "real house."  Six an a half years later, we are barely any closer to having a house built than we were when we bought this property.  There are several reasons for this.  1. Our impossibly steep driveway.  2. We want to build most of it ourselves and it's hard to get workers out for small check when they can earn so much more in the huge building projects going on all around us.  This little house, is kind of gross.  Every decision from form to function was made poorly, on the cheap, and I have always hated pretty much everything about it except for the fact that has provided shelter.  Mr. Bleu admonished me when we moved in that I shouldn't decorate because it was "only temporary."  So, apart from a fresh coat of paint on these awful walls, we did nothing to change the house.  At the end of our 6th year here, I was starting to lose hope of ever building a new house and beyond frustrated with the current state of this house.  I went to Mr. Bleu with a desperate ultimatum:  If we don't have a house at least started being built in one year, I am going to gut this one and make it mine.  It was a very Delia Deets moment, except if Delia had been moving into a crummy little trailer instead of beautiful farmhouse she would have been the hero not the villain.  People would have leapt out of their seats and cheered for her if she were moving into my house instead of the Maitlands'.

For starters, everything in this house was built for an old bachelor, not a family of four, so space is a definite issue.  Ad because it was only temporary we didn't downsize.  For followers, everything is dark, so dark it felt like walking into a cave when we moved in and even now, I struggle to keep plants alive because the light never reaches them.  And finally, everything is very, very, very cheap and looks it.  Whoever built this house cut corners like it was crunch time at the circle factory.  A prime example is here in the master bath.  It is floor to ceiling cedar boards which are both ugly and very dark.  When I tried to pry them up so the we could hang wallpaper I found that they were both nailed and glued down to the "wall."  I say "wall" with quotations because it is actually just quarter inch thick sheets of drywall underneath.  

Since removing the cedar planks wasn't possible, I decided to spackle over the top portion, hang wallpaper over it, and paint the bottom in a complimentary color.  Not wanting to waste a weekend waiting for spackle to dry, Mr. Bleu and I spent an enjoyable Thursday evening spackling in this very tiny space.  It dried overnight and was ready for painting on the weekend.  You know you're not a kid anymore when you get excited to do chores on the weekend and actually start saying things like, "I hope no one calls and asks me to go anywhere this weekend.  I have plans to PAINT!"

Well, the bottom part of the walls were painted and the wallpaper arrived only to include instructions that said it could not be hung over textured wall of any kind.  If the wall had texture, and ours definitely did, then we needed to purchase and hang wallpaper lining.  That meant more money spent and another week waiting.  The instructions also said they paper could not be hung in a room that had moisture, but I am going to pretend that our bathroom is well ventilated at all times and freaking hang it anyway.  Undeterred by this, the first of many obstacles and setbacks, I moved on to focus on other aspects of the bathroom.  Once again I glued wood appliques to the cabinet doors and then repainted everything.

I addition to changing the walls, I also wanted to change out the tile and laminate around the sink, get rid of this horrible gray carpet, and put in all new fixtures.  Hey, I said I hated everything about this house, didn't I?  I also intend to improve the door.  Changing the door isn't possible because it is a non-standard size.  Big, shock there.  And since the mirror is also glued to the wall, I am removing the cheap border and replacing it with something nicer. (I'm writing this as we're working, so scroll to see how things progress)

Lining ordered, we waited until the following weekend for it to arrive so we could hang it and then let it "cure" for a week before attempting wallpaper.

In the meantime, we set about doing the tile.  And it all went according to plan!  No, just kidding, it went sideways immediately and resulted in having to wait a day, go to Home Depot for supplies, and then try again the next day, but we did get it finished and get the new countertop installed before the weekend was over.  I also got the cabinets, sanded, painted, appliqued and reinstalled in the bathroom.  And while I was at it, I did a total clean out of everything under the bathroom sink and in the medicine cabinet.  I did an inventory of everything we have and completely decluttered everything we don't need.  It felt amazing!   In addition to decluttering, I did throw away all our completely used up rugs and get a few "new" fixtures which were actually all vintage brass. 

The wallpaper was a total bear to hang because it is high end, very delicate, and unpasted.  We had to use wallpaper liner followed by an acrylic sealant which immediately caused the liner to bubble.  Then we decided to stop jumping through all the hoops for this fancy paper that's going to wear out over time just like all other things on the planet and just put it on the wall already.  It was unpasted so we had to buy paste and edging/smoothing tools.  (Great!  More expenses!)  And since the pattern only repeats every 25" we had to buy a second roll and there was a lot of waste in getting the pattern to line up.    But we had a similar issue with the pattern not lining up on our cheap tile as we did our expensive wallpaper, so I guess price isn't really an indicator.

All the tile had to be sealed and then polished because it immediately started getting scuffed and stained, so you know, more expenses.  And we decided to move the medicine cabinet around the corner so we would have more room at the sink.  The wall that now houses the medicine cabinet had hooks all over it for some reason which I never discerned, since anything that got hung there was eventually going to fall directly into the toilet.  So, now it has our cabinet hanging on it and I have to remember to close the toilet lid before I get out my makeup.

FYI, I also papered the inside of the medicine cabinet to match the wall.  I figured it would look nice and also make good use of all that wasted paper.  We also bought some trim, painted it gold and reframed the mirror so that it would look nice.  I took down the cheap full length mirror that I had to bend down to see my face so I could do my makeup and replaced it with a small mirror that was at the right height for putting on my face in the mornings.  Since we're not ready to completely redo the shower, I opted to cover it with a nice curtain instead.

I started writing this post as we were getting started and I very foolishly thought this would be a quick and inexpensive bathroom makeover.  It was not.  It was pricey, which I don't regret because I wanted to have nice things that would last instead of cheap crap for a change.  It also took several weekends and in truth we still need to put trim around the sink as you can see in the photo below and we need to put up the crown molding.  But since life moves on and we have to use this space on a daily basis, I thought I should go ahead and take my before and after photos now before this space gets too lived in, a.k.a dirty.  So, here are our before and after photos for comparison.  I intend to finish this space this weekend and move on to another room of the house until it finally resembles a place I actually want to live.