When we first moved into our home everything was brand new so there was little we actually had to do. I saw it as a blank canvas though, waiting to be personalized.
The bathroom was great but there were definitely some things I wanted to do in there. The first project was new hardware, cabinetry, and toilet. The second project was installing a tile backsplash. Since then (September 2011) we haven’t done anything in there. This is totally fine except I’ve been staring at my poor cover up paint job on the tile grout and a few filled holes near the toilet paper roll for the last 8 months.
I needed to just get to painting in there and this past Saturday was the perfect time (John was out all day and I had no plans).
The Bathroom Before:
I gathered all of my gear (paint, paint tray, gloves, drop cloth, blue tape, roller, and paint mixer) and got to work.
The first thing I did was paint tape everything in the bathroom. This was the toughest part of the whole operation! Taping the bathroom took me forever. Like an hour and a half!
When the taping was done I went on to mix my paint. You should always mix up your paint before using it. You can bring it to Home Depot and they’ll give it a whirl in the special machines they have there. You can stir paint with those wooden stirrers too but it takes forever to get it all fully integrated, especially if the paint has been sitting a while. Our paint sat for at least 6 months in the basement and looked pretty nasty when I opened the can:
No worries! Last time we were at Home Depot we bought this Husky Paint Mixer that you attach to a drill to mix paint with. Setting it up in a drill takes two seconds and the results are much better than using a paint stirrer.
I used the drill mixer for about 2 minutes directly in the paint can. You have to be careful not to splatter the paint everywhere but other than that, this thing is awesome.
The paint was perfectly mixed and back to the original color in no time.
I got the awesome idea to tinfoil the paint tray from Pinterest (of course). It makes for easy clean up and you can reuse your trays over and over. Genius.
Finally, I got to work! The painting itself was really quick. The roller made it go very smoothly.
Because the roller can’t go everywhere, my strategy for tight spaces, fixtures, and detail work was to go around them with a smaller paintbrush and the use the roller over it to smooth everything out. It worked great.
The first coat drying:
I did two coats of paint with a little extra in some places when I spot checked the whole thing.
On Sunday John was home to help me take down all the dang tape. I also used a razor scraper to pick up any paint that ended up not on the wall (oops!).
The finished paint job!
The Before and After (to save you from scrolling all the way back up):
Not a drastic difference but we really like it. The paint is slightly darker but it doesn’t darken the room too much. It’s not really a big deal anyways since the bathroom gets a ton of light. We think it adds a warmth to the room which is exactly what we were looking for. Yay!
