Yesterday was my first workday on the studio bathroom, and as is almost always the case when starting a new project, I ran into some problems. But at least I made some progress, so I’m heading in the right direction. 😀
My main goals yesterday were to (1) clean out the bathroom and remove all of the stuff that was lying around on the countertop and floor, and (2) get the walls to the point where I could start mudding the rough areas left behind when I removed the chair rail and tile.
I had installed the tile using those sticky pads instead of mortar, and getting those off of the wall caused damage to the drywall. All the way around the room, it took off the primer and paint layer, leaving the primer and paint layer that remained very loose and jagged. So I needed to get that smoothed out so that I could put drywall mud over it. That process went fairly well on this area…
I was using a 6-inch metal drywall knife to do this, and when I got to this wall, the primer and paint layer came off like I was removing wallpaper. I’m a bit obsessive when it comes to peeling things, so I just kept scraping and peeling, and before I knew it, I had peeled this much off of the wall.
I could have kept going. I wanted to keep going because, again, I have this weird obsession with things that peel off easily. But I realized that if I didn’t find a stopping point, I’d spend the next week peeling these walls, and that would be a huge waste of time. I just needed to a stopping point where all of the edges were flat and adhered to the wall so that I can mud over the edges. I think I finally have all of the edges to that point now, and I’ll be mudding the room today. My goal is to get the walls sanded, primed, and ready for wallpaper by the end of the day today.
I ran into a problem with the mirror, though. I cannot get this thing off of the wall.
I used to install everything — every single piece of trim — with construction adhesive. I learned many years ago that using construction adhesive on everything is a huge waste of time and money, and if I ever wanted to remove the trim, it destroyed the drywall. But clearly, I didn’t learn that lesson with mirrors.
I know I used mirror mastic to attach this to the wall, and evidently, I used an entire tube of it for this small mirror. I can’t get this thing to budge at all. I’m not concerned about breaking the mirror since I won’t be reusing it. So I wasn’t even being gentle with it. But no matter how much I pried, and no matter what I used to shove between the wall and the mirror to separate the two, I couldn’t make any headway on it. So if you have any advice on how to remove a mirror that’s glued to the wall with mirror mastic, I’d love to hear it!
One design decision that I still need to work out is how to transition from the wainscoting to the wallpaper. In this original bathroom design, I used a row of tiles. They provided a backsplash for the sink area, and then I carried them around the room as an accent.
But I can’t even imagine using tiles with this wallpaper. I don’t think there’s any kind of tile that would look good with this wallpaper covered in squares.
Square tiles like I had before certainly wouldn’t work. That would be squares with squares, and that’s overkill. Rectangle tiles wouldn’t work, either. I thought about using white penny tiles with white grout, but when I try to picture that in my mind, I think it would be way too busy also.
So I think I’ll end using wood. Initially, I thought that using wood might not be the best idea since it will be a backsplash around the sink area, but people use wainscoting behind and around sinks in bathrooms all the time. It’s actually very common. And it’s really the only option I think will work with the wallpaper. I imagine finishing off the top of the wainscoting to look similar to the wainscoting in this bathroom. (Photo from Houzz. Bathroom by Rachael Liberman Design, LLC.)
Photo by Rachael Liberman Design LLC – Discover powder room design inspiration
But in my bathroom, that top wide piece of lumber will sit right on top of the countertop. I can envision that, and I think it’s the only option that will finish off the top of the wainscoting without being too busy and competing with the wallpaper.
The picture frame molding has to stay exactly where it is. I don’t have the option of making it taller or swapping it out for something different because the whole reason I added picture frame molding to this room is to disguise the removable panel behind the toilet.
That panel is removable to access the pump behind the toilet. So the picture frame molding has to stay, and it has to stay exactly where it is.
So that’s the progress and the plan for now. And now that I have the walls scraped and ready for drywall mud, I’m hoping to make a lot of progress in here over the weekend. I’m anxious to get that wallpaper up!!
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Addicted 2 Decorating is where I share my DIY and decorating journey as I remodel and decorate the 1948 fixer upper that my husband, Matt, and I bought in 2013. Matt has M.S. and is unable to do physical work, so I do the majority of the work on the house by myself. You can learn more about me here.
