Here is my master bathroom renovation.
When we first moved in, I think we quickly realized that the owner of this house before us liked to live in a cave. The master bedroom was a dark, dark, DARK, green. Almost black. With a flat finish. Periodically we'd find sections of the walls where the previous color shown through. Back then, before the dark green, he'd painted the master bedroom a navy blue with a high gloss finish. Evidently, he used this same navy blue with the high gloss finish in the bathroom as well.
Our master bath is teeny tiny, all things considered, for a master bath. One of the first things I did when we moved in was paint this bathroom white. But that was just a 'hold over' until I could figure out what I wanted to do with it.
So the master bath renovations started with Pinterest. Well, actually, it started when we talked to a Real Estate Agent to ask about selling our house so we could move to a house that already had features I wanted (like crown molding and chair rails, and wainscoting), so that we wouldn't have to add them to this house. After a quick run through of our house, the Real Estate Agent said we couldn't sell our house until we redid the kitchen counters, the bathrooms all needed to be updated, and we needed a neutral color in our living room. At that point I realized that if I redid the bathrooms, the kitchen, and painted all the trim white, I'd actually like my house. So began the renovations.
I started with the living room. I chose a neutral peanut butter color for the living room. Took me about seven different samples to find just the right color, and then I just ended up mixing up the tiny paint bottles and creating my own color. The peanut butter color looked great in the fall, with my red silk flowers for decorations, and my red vases and table clothes and such. But by the time Christmas rolled around, I was no longer enamored. I began searching Pinterest, and found that gray had become the new neutral. Or had returned to being the new neutral. Or whatever. Anyway you look at it, I fell in love. And I fell in love with the idea of gray walls with white trim and dark mahogany doors.
I was afraid of sanding and painting the trim. I don't know how to take it off, and I definitely don't know how to put it back on. I wanted the white trim in my living room, but I was afraid to try something so drastic downstairs without trying it out in a smaller room.
So I started with my master bathroom. It's a small room, and, I thought, fairly easy to transform.
I started with the cabinets. I sanded them down to the bitter ends of their lives, stained them, and varnished them. I then had hubby drill holes (wow!) into the cabinets and install brushed nickel knobs and drawer pulls. We had none before. The whole thing took forever. And I learned a lot of important lessons. Like, for example, when you're waiting for varnish to dry, don't let your cats roam about in the bathroom, or they'll, oh, say, jump up onto the counter and leave kitty foot prints. You know, basic logic.
So then I sanded and painted all the trim white. I kept all the pieces in place, and didn't remove them. I spent way too much time on my patukus on the floor, and realized quickly that I should eventually learn how to take off the trim and put it back on. But I still don't know how to do that, and I ended up sanding and painting the trim in all 3 bathrooms with the trim in place.
I also learned an interesting lesson after painting the trim. I caulked the edges of the trim with a clear seal. I thought sealing them would be great. But it turns out that clear caulk does keep the water out, and keeps things from falling in the crack. Yay! However, other than that, it really just shows the gap between the wall and the base board. I switched to white caulk (after refinishing the kids bathroom and seeing the AMAZING difference), and wowza!!! MUCH better. Gap closed, water staying out, hair and dust staying out, and then it looks like the white trim is actually perfectly lined up to the wall, without any gaps showing. WOW. Much better choice.
I also heard from somewhere that you could spray paint polished chrome and make it look like a brushed nickel finish. So I bought some spray paint, taped the entire inside and outside my shower and everywhere else with newspaper and spray painted the polished chrome trim on my shower door. It *almost* worked! That is to say, it worked well enough. And it looks heaps better than the polished chrome. But I have not perfected my spray painting technique, and there are a few places the spray painting ran a bit, and I'm not thrilled. I would have been better off painting the whole thing with a brush. I'm an excellent brush painter. I spray painted the toilet flusher knob as well, but the results felt gritty. So I bought a new flusher knob for $10 or so, and again was much happier with the results.
I then painted the ceiling, including up into the sky light. Then I patched up the holes in the wall from where the towel rack fell down. Then I took off the wall mirror. It had been superglued into place. Oh the joys the previous owner left me with. That left some marks. So I ended up having to sand the wall a bit. Strange thing to be doing, but it helped reduce (even though not completely eliminate) the marks left behind from where the mirror had been glued to the wall.
Then I took down the old light fixture above the mirror and the light fixture in the center of the room. (I had no idea there even WAS a light fixture in the center of the room. The lightbulb had been burnt out from the very beginning and I completely forgot it was there until I started painting the ceiling! How unobservant am I?) I even painted the vent. It just popped down, I mucked all the dust bunnies out of it, and painted it in place. Then when it dried, I popped it back up into place. Looks so much cleaner and nicer, and matches the ceiling perfectly!
Then I did some plumbing and replaced the faucet with a nice brushed nickel one.
Then I had hubby come in and remove all the electrical outlets and replace those. Then I painted the walls. Then we added in new brushed nickel electrical socket face plates. Nice touch.
We bought the light above the mirror at Lowes. The mirror I bought with the other two mirrors (kids' bathroom and the powder room) at TJ Maxx. The brushed nickel face plates we picked up at Home Depot. I think the oil rubbed bronze ones we got for the powder room were from Lowes.
A few weeks later I braved my fears and sanded, stained, and sealed the pocket door (IN PLACE!). I used a slightly different product than I used on the cupboards, with an all-in-one stain and sealant. I would recommend this product only for *experienced painters who excel at brushing and are fast* and for projects where time is of the essence. I tried using the same product on the bedroom door, and was not pleased with the results. I ended up re-sanding the bedroom door and starting over the old fashioned way, and was much happier. BUT, for the pocket door, the product worked GREAT, and allowed me to do both sides of the door at the same time, since I kept the door hanging in place.
The pocket door is peeking out. I also replaced the handle to a brushed nickel one instead of the gold/brass colored one. Easy peasy.
So even though the transformation doesn't seem quite as dramatic as the downstairs powder room transformation, I did a lot of work in making this bathroom look this way. It's not great, but it's a whole lot better than it was. I'm much happier with the other two bathrooms. When we get new granite countertops and an undermounted sink, I'm sure I'll like it even more.
Maybe I'll get around to doing something else to our bathroom to perk things up. But for now, it's in a good place, and that's what counts.
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