While many people really think the most important bathroom in the house is the master, we disagree. We think it's the guest bath.
I digress....This is especially true when one discovers that the pedestal sink in the guest bathroom is not connected to the wall or the floor...so if your six-year old leans on the sink and spits out her toothpaste, there's a good chance it will end up dripping on the floor where the pipe dislodges from the wall. This leads to an immediate decision to move the guest bath to the top of the to-do list.Digression over...
Our guest bath is in the basement of the church. This is what it looked like when we moved in:
As you can see, there is a lot going on. Vinyl floors and sponge painted wallpaper. Who knew that was a thing? What you don't see are leaky faucets and the teetering sink mentioned above.
Like both bathrooms in the house, the plumbing was not buried in a concrete slab; rather, someone decided to raise the floor instead. So there are two steps up as you walk through the door and the ceiling is low. I suspect this was a cheaper option, and it was likely the only real option in the second floor master bath. More on that later.
Removing the Wallpaper
The first step I took was to remove the wallpaper. This will be a theme during this entire remodel because there is a LOT of wallpaper in this house and we intend to remove all of it. Because it's a bathroom and likely to be high in moisture, it was very important to remove both the paper and the glue. The paper is easy because you can literally just peel it off. What is left, however, is a fuzzy paper that is really the adhesive backing. It must be removed because if it gets wet or subjected to steam, there is a risk that it will become mushy under your paint.
I did quite a bit of research on how to remove wallpaper. There are tons of posts online about it where people swear by certain methods. The methods are all some variation on steam, soaking the wall with a wallpaper remover, and scraping. Having now removed wallpaper in several different rooms in the church, I have concluded that what works best depends on your particular wallpaper and/or the method of its application. For example, in the master bedroom, there are two layers of wallpaper and it was glued on unprimed gypsum board so removing the glue without damaging the wall will be very, very difficult. This has led to believe that everyone who wants to install wallpaper should be required to remove some first. Thankfully, the wallpaper in this bathroom was not too terrible to remove. It took one full day, but as you'll see, removing the wallpaper alone improved the bathroom by leaps and bounds.
I really, really wanted to paint the bathroom black. Sounds crazy, right? But if you poke around on Pinterest or are addicted to looking at houses on RedFin like me, you'll find that it can look really great. Because the windows in this bathroom are south facing, I really thought it could take this drastic color. So I went to Island Lumber and picked out a quart of semi-gloss black paint to give it a try. After painting one wall, I knew it was going to work. So we decided to go for it.
When you choose a dark paint color, the challenge of crisp lines where the wall meets the ceiling is particularly important. Simply taping your bathroom prior to painting is not enough, because paint inevitably bleeds through the tape. There a many tricks online to reduce bleeding, including applying clear caulking to the edge of the tape, using special brushes, eliminating tape altogether, etc.... I chose the simplest trick that did not require me to buy anything extra, and it worked for me.
To sum it up: Paint will bleed, so work with it.
In my case, my ceiling is white and was going to remain that way. So.... (1) I taped along the ceiling to protect it from the black paint; (2) I took white paint and painted along the edge of the tape on the wall that will be painted black; (3) I let it dry; and (4) leaving the tape in place, I then painted the wall black right over the white paint that I previously applied. I let the paint dry for a couple of hours, and pulled off the tape. What happens with this method is that the white paint bleeds through the tape and onto the ceiling, which is already white. And the white paint creates a tight barrier that prevents the black paint from bleeding. Et voila! Crisp lines.
Shiplap
For the bottom part of the bathroom, we decided to go with shiplap. This is a fairly inexpensive wall covering that looks really good. It is super easy to install. I made the decision to purchase a pre-finished shiplap. It was a little more expensive, but it saved my having to paint both sides of the shiplap prior to installing it.
Because the clawfoot tub was too heavy for my husband and I to move without help, I began installing the shiplap prior to removing it. All I needed was a mallet and a nail gun to install the shiplap, which I cut to size as I went along because nothing is square in our little church. Nothing. For the longer sections of wall, I staggered the seams of the shiplap. It takes more time but its necessary for aesthetic reasons. Its pretty ugly to see a long vertical seam in the middle of the wall. The great part about shiplap is that you don't have to be a carpenter or perfect because you can always paint, caulk, and trim out imperfections.
I only installed about 1/2 the shiplap before moving on to another project in the bathroom. The new faucet and wall-mounted sink. I needed to get into the wall to install the faucet. More on that soon....on Project #8: The sink.
