I have been working on the master bathroom for the last couple of days, and I’ve learned several things during this project:
1. It is very difficult to cover up mint green paint and may take three to four coats of white paint. While this was very frustrating, I’m happy to say that the green is all gone, and it has been replaced with a fresh clean white.
2. Our bathroom needed a complete cleaning from floor to ceiling, including scrubbing, spraying down with water, bleach, sprays…. I didn’t know it was that dirty until I took everything out and took a good look around, especially in the top cabinets. eek.
3. Mirrors make rooms look and feel much bigger. After I took the large mirror down, I felt like I was in a teeny tiny closet. Mirrors are back up, and it feels open and spacious again. Amazing!
4. Wallpaper is very frustrating and annoying to take down. I’m making a mental note of that because we’re planning to put wallpaper up in our other bathroom. I’m going to think long and hard about that decision. It took me forever to take down the small floral border in this bathroom, and when I say forever I mean half a day. That’s a lot of spraying and scraping paper particles off the wall.
Now onto the photos. Here are the photos from before and during the process.
The border wallpaper (up close with a flash).
The wall paper is almost gone!
View from the other side of the bathroom.
The previous owner decided to take a little short-cut while redoing the bathroom- she used spray paint to change up the look of the cabinets! Definitely a quick fix, but not so pretty to look at considering it got everywhere and has bubbles in it.
Now onto the new look, which we’re not quite finished with because I need to have an electrician out to move the wiring for the lights. We’re going to put a light over each mirror, instead of one big light. Other than that, there are a couple finishing touches that I’ll get to next week.
I had this paper from Marshall’s that I decided to use to line the cabinets.
I used mod podge to glue them down, and it was a quick and easy project that added some visual interest.
That wraps up the first part of our bathroom makeover! I’ll post the rest as soon as I can make a decision about the lights and have an electrician out…
A Date with Design 
Wow, Anne! That is a LOT of work! I know the pains of removing wall paper. When I was a little girl my parents decided to give my sister and I totally re-designed bedrooms. That involved floor to ceiling, no joke, wallpaper! We had a border up top, a different paper in the middle, and another different one on the bottom third or so of the walls. Taking three different sets of wallpaper off of two bedroom’s walls was a nightmare once we outgrew the bunnies and ballerinas. I hate wallpaper and highly advise against it!
My parents had put floor to ceiling wallpaper in their bedroom and master bath and later had to tear out the bathroom wallpaper out of desperation. Mold likes to grow under paper in a moist and gluey atmosphere, FYI. I would seriously advise AGAINST putting any wallpaper anywhere in your home, and definitely not in your bathroom. I think some creative painting or stenciling, if you really want a pattern, is the safest way to go. In the even you’re bored and want a change, repainting is a lot easier than removing wallpaper, as you know. :)
I think the revamp is coming along quite nice. I agree that the mirrors add the depth to the small bathroom. I like the papered shelves you put in as it does give a little something extra– a little shabby chic touch to it– and modgepodging was a good idea since just paper would get all waterlogged from moisture.
It’s looking good and I’m proud, and, as always, very entertained by your blog. :)
Hugs!
-Savannah
Wow! It looks about a billion times better! Thankfully we only have to deal with one small section of flocked/fuzzy wallpaper – unfortunately for us, though, the previous owner(s?) decided that instead of removing the wallpaper before painting, they’d just paint right over it. So we had odd stiff raised areas – in the shape of fleur de lis. We ended up having to completely take out the entire piece of drywall (thank goodness it was a small one!) and put up brand new drywall to get rid of that stupid painted-flocked-wallpaper. Ugh.
But that looks great! I’m glad the previous owner didn’t decide to just paint over it. ;)
~Chelsea
How clean that looks! Getting rid of the mirror with all the corrosion along the bottom made a huge difference- to say nothing of the mint green paint/yellow tile combination and the blue border. Good work on making another room livable!
Thanks so much everyone!! I just got back into town and appreciate the comments. :)
Savannah- I totally agree about the wallpaper, and I’ve been thinking about the stencils as another option. I might be able to find something cool on Etsy. It sounds like you guys had tons of wallpaper, and I can’t even imagine taking it all down! I’m glad you made it through that.
Chelsea- I can’t believe they painted over that wallpaper and that you guys had to put up new drywall. That’s crazy, but I’m sure it looks tons better.