1970’s Guest Bathroom Makeover
I’ve been super busy this weekend finishing up some projects. I’m very excited and can’t wait to show you some of them.
However, because several of them are tutorials (which take a little longer to write up), I decided to share with you a guest bathroom makeover from our old house.
This poor bathroom had an identity crisis.
and Laura Ashley style wallpaper.
The first thing we did was strip the wallpaper in this room. If you have never stripped wallpaper, there are two types of wall paper stripping projects. The easy ones and the hard ones! Luckily we had an easy one.
The walls had been primed before the wallpaper was attached (as opposed to gluing the wallpaper on top of the drywall (or sheetrock as some people call it.)
Forget the steamer, forget the chemicals, we used these tools:
- Cheap, cheap, cheap pink fabric softener mixed 1:1 with water
- Spray Bottle to pour your fabric softener mixture in
- Paper Tiger or wall scoring tool
- Wallpaper scraper – We really liked the Piranha shaver since it has a razor sharp blade
- Or Wallpaper Trim Tool
You start by scoring the wall with the Paper Tiger or similar tool. The more holes the better, so put on some dancing music and get busy.
Then you spray the walls with your fabric softener mixture. Really saturate them! Wait 15 minutes, then spray them again. Now, use your scraper to start peeling. I truly hope your sheets come off in nice big sheets like ours did. If not, you may have to have your walls re-skimmed with spackle or joint compound.
Or, I hate to mention this, but you could paint over the wallpaper. We have two rooms in our current home that this was done in (we know for a fact that the wallpaper was glued to the drywall without priming first.) If you take this route, I want to let you in on two secrets:
- Use an eggshell or satin finish paint (it will not show the edges or imperfections as easily.)
- Take the time to make sure all the wallpaper seams are glued down and then spread some joint compound or spackle over the seams and sand it smooth. This will get rid of the tell-tale seam lines when you paint over wallpaper.
After you have removed all the wallpaper you need to wash your walls really well to remove the glue. We saturated the walls again with the fabric softener and then cleaned it off. Finally, we used TSP cleaner (available at any home improvement or hardware store) to get the walls perfectly cleaned.
Then I painted the walls a bright Nickelodeon slime green. I kid you not, but I didn’t take a picture of it in that state. My friends thought I had flown the cuckoo’s nest. But, I went back with a creamy lemon glaze and ragged it on top. The result was a beautiful lime sherbert color (perfect for a little boy or girl’s bathroom.)
Next, the light fixture had to go, and it went quickly!
But, that harvest gold vanity would not stop shouting “groovy dude” whenever I saw it. So, it had to go too. Unfortunately, we were on a limited budget, so I had to get creative.
so I could do this:
Can I use Polyacrylic (Polycrylic-spelling) Spray over spray paint on a bathroom sink, like the link below?
https://www.pinterest.com/pin/310044755573545873/
Wow, marvelous weblog layout! How long have you ever been blogging
for? you make running a blog look easy. The entire glance of your site is magnificent, let alone the content!
Bravo…I will be changing a faucet set in our master bedroom for the first time, then hope to change the other two, whew…thanks for the motivation, Love & Blessings to you/yours…
I love this project. However, I want to point out one thing. If anyone wants to paint over wallpaper, they should with an oil-based paint. Water-based paint can seep into some wallpapers making them peel. I only know from my time spent working in the paint department of our local home improvement store. Otherwise, this would be a great how-to/DIY at the weekend workshops!
For the hard water stains, you might want to try Sno-Bol toilet cleaner. We use it on our boat when we take it to the salt water. It gets a film on the underneath part that bleach won’t take off. But Sno-Bol makes it PERFECT again! Just wear gloves and be careful b/c it WILL burn your skin. If that doesn’t work, go to the boat section in a store and look for boat cleaning products that is used to remove rust and hard stains. There is one product called “On/OFF” and it works wonders too!! but try Sno-Bol first. Its cheaper than ON OFF boat cleaner. And please be careful using the ON OFF cleaner too. It will burn your skin! i would wear gloves AND goggles! just be careful!!!
nice job-have heard about painting laminate but never been brave enough to try it!
great job!
i swear i grew up in bathrooms that looked like that my entire life!~
wow! that countertop is amazing!! visiting from MMS
I love it! It just so happens that I have 1/2 a can of Nickelodian green upstairs with my paint supplies. I didn't do a glaze, but it was a mis-tint that I got cheap, so add it to some white paint and made a nice soft spring-y green for the laundry room at my old house. It is amazing how the color brightened up a dreary dark room. I love your redo, it is so cute and little ones would love it!
I love what you did with the counter top! It looks fantastic! 🙂 And I am glad you had an easy time removing the wallpaper! I know it can be a very painful process! The whole bathroom turned out wonderful, by the way!
I just love your blog! I will be back again soon!
Have a wonderful night! 🙂
Blessings,
Jenni
{Beautiful Nest}