Bathroom: Phase One

Six hours of work is all I could muster over this long, hot holiday weekend.  But it was enough to get me through Phase One of the bathroom renovation.

These were my supplies.  First step was to sand down the upper walls and door/window frames with my mouse sander.  I should have done the ceiling this way too, but I just couldn’t get the leverage to apply enough pressure.  Plus dust gets in your eyes real bad.

The worst part is by far the door frame.  I don’t know why it’s peeling so badly, but it was really coming off in huge sheets.  I made a pocket to store my putty knife between uses:

And then it was time to take off the mirror and medicine cabinet.  I really thought this mirror would need to be pried off and probably shatter.  Surprisingly it came of SUPER easily.  Too easily, in fact, it probably would have fallen down on its own soon.

But check out the fun surprises lurking behind it!

It’s gobs of black goo, stuck on there many years ago to hold the mirror up without any brackets/screws/nails/etc.  They were all hard as a rock, and stuck directly to some layer of glossy old yellow paint.  Oh and some kind of junction box I didn’t know was back there.  Great.

So I started scraping it all down with the flat side of a pry bar, which ultimately took off big chunks of wall with it.

So I tried to patch them as well as I could before putting the primer on.

See how flippin’ shiny these walls are?  This is why I also needed to rub down every surface with the liquid de-glosser before applying the primer.  It was hard to tell if it was doing it’s job or not.  The primer went on pretty well.  So…I guess it did?

And now after two coats of primer, we’re looking pretty good.

And aside from the mirror goo fiasco, the place really opened up when we took down the medicine cabinet.  It seals the deal for me that we’ll be sticking w/ open shelving for our little makeover.

It’s already looking so much brighter and clean.  I can’t wait to get the real paint up on the walls.

Here’s where we stand in the grand scheme of things:

1. Sand down upper walls and door/window frames
2. Remove mirror and medicine cabinet and sand walls below
3. Apply liquid de-glosser to all upper walls and ceiling
4. Apply heavy-duty primer to upper walls and ceiling
5. Paint ceiling white
6. Paint upper walls w/ Sherwin Williams Toque White
7. Paint door/window frame and mid-rail moulding w/ Valspar Ultra White
8. Remove old baseboards
9. Repair gaps in lower walls
10. Paint lower walls w/ dark teal (color TBD)
11. Cut and install new baseboards to match the rest of the downstairs
12. Paint new baseboards w/ Valspar Ultra White
13. Buy/install new mirror
14. Buy/install new medicine cabinet or shelves
15. Install new wooden shelf over the sink
16. (Possibly) buy and install a new sink faucet
17. Make simple valance for window
18. Find a properly-sized rug
19. Raise shower bar higher and buy extra-long curtain
20. Replace light fixture
21. Accessorize.