December 12, 2010

bathroom facelift: in the beginning

In the beginning, sometime during the 1960's, my house was built. Specifically, a bathroom was decorated. And it was bad. Very bad. The color avocado and Formica counter tops abounded.  Wall to wall mirrors and speckled tile were joined together to create the perfect storm of enclosed chaos. Egg shaped brass chandeliers. Laminate Flooring. No windows. No way to escape the bad layout of the corner sink and cave-like shower. It was, and to this day, is bad.





As you can tell from the photos, we've been using it as a storage area. The shower had been holding boxes of Violet's old clothes. Various cleaning products here and there. But seriously, the bathroom is so dirty and gross I never wanted to tackle it until now. Where to start?

The first thing we did? Take down those awful lighting fixture and remove the mirrors.


This revealed the home's original plaid wall paper. Attractive? Not really. But now the color combo of pea green, avocado green, and tan speckled tiles with a golden flaked counter-tops kinda makes sense..... maybe? Moving on.


Fortunately, the wallpaper peeled off like a dream! Now we are down to the original drywall.

We are really thinking about what our next move should be. We have no master plan yet. We had contemplated painting the existing tile, but have heard mixed views on the results. Plus, the mirrors were installed lower than the rest of the tile, so there is a huge dip in the tile work. Now we are thinking about ripping down the tile (save the tile in the shower itself) and putting up some affordable bead boards. At some point the cabinets were painted white, and they will stay that way. Working around the corner sink and the countertops? Not sure yet!

Until next week....