There is always that one renovation that sucks the soul out of you. Well yeah, I just finished one. My client is one of the most wonderful people I have ever met, and this is one of the bathrooms in her house she has asked me to fix up. It was a half bath with wallpaper, how hard could it be? Here is what the bathroom looked like before:
Well I don’t know WHO put the wallpaper up but it was NOT budging. I tried EVERYTHING. I tried scoring and softening with downy, I tried special products, I scraped. Best of all, this was happening during Christmas time, which is my most favorite time of the year. I found myself crying and scraping at the same time…. ok maybe thats a bit dramatic, but I wasn’t happy.
What should have taken me 1 day took me 4 days, and I was still left with this. Ironically, it looks like a tornado, and I found humor in that.
I decided to call local paint and wallpaper stores because I have never been faced with this before. They suggested I use a hand sander with 60 grit and just destroy the vinyl surface. From there I could use downy and it started to peel…. THANK GOD. It was a two step process. I had to sand, spray with downy, and peel the vinyl, and then spray and peel the paper. Of course there was still residue, so I took a bucket and filled it with warm water and TSP. Washing down the walls with the TSP cut right into the remaining glue and I was able to scrape it off. Finally the walls were clean.
I patched old holes and sanded….
Finally, finally, finally…. I was able to paint!!! Paiting is the easy part. The color my client chose was “Chocolate Pudding” by Benjamin Moore.
When I was finished painting I put a nice fresh polyurethane on the woodwork to brighten it up! There were days that the bathroom won the battle, but in the end I won the war! Here is the finished product:
Renewed Reloved 