The Bathroom.... and the rest PART1

On Saturday, a fortnight ago now, my 'thinking' about doing up the bathroom moved up a gear. I stripped off the rest of the hideous wallpaper! Then my friend Salena (who offered to lend a hand with the painting) suggested we also do the kitchen and dining room at the same time.

And so, we embarked upon re-painting the LAST of the house that still needed to be re-painted! Not JUST the bathroom, kitchen and dining room, but also the toilet and the back hallway! I don't do things by halves, you understand!

So, I stripped the dining room with the help of everyone else in the house. Part way through this process, when the wallpaper wasn't falling off in the way I had hoped it would, I suddenly had an epiphany - I had a garment steamer left over from when I owned my shop. I filled it with water, plugged it in, and lo and behold, the garment steamer was now a nifty wallpaper steamer too!

Once the stripping was done in the dining room, even with half turquoise walls, it already looked SO much bigger and brighter. That night after the kids went to bed I also stripped the friezes from around the top of the toilet walls and the kitchen walls. I also managed to give myself a really fantastic steam burn with my improvised garment steamer come wallpaper steamer. It was late, around 11pm, I had about 2m of frieze to remove still, so as any good DIY-er would do, I swore, got down from the bench, turned the steamer off and stood with my hand under cold running water for a bit, while looking up at the last bit of frieze muttering under my breath. When the stinging had stopped, I applied the magic burn cream and carried on. The next morning I wasn't in any pain at all! There is still a big patch of rough skin that I am moisturising regularly, but it is healing nicely!

The next day, Sunday, I plastered all the blemishes. My goodness there were a LOT of blemishes!!! Salena came over in the late afternoon and lent a hand as well - after plastering for so long it was good to have a fresh set of eyes to go over the walls and see any bits that I had missed.

Some of the plastering in the bathroom

Then it was Monday. I got out my sander and I sanded every piece of wall. Plaster dust everywhere. I also went around with a whiteboard marker as I sanded putting a mark on the wall if there was a piece of wall that had been missed. When the sanding and marking was done, you guessed it, I did more plastering!

Covered in sanding dust. And yes, I AM wearing bright red lipstick under my mask! A girl can still look pretty, even when doing DIY!

Tuesday. Thank goodness the kids are with their father on Monday and Tuesday!! I sanded again. Then I started washing down the walls and ceilings. Very tedious! But after the tedium of prep, comes the fun of painting, then the delightfulness of the end product!

Sanding done in the toilet. 

My wee step I made at carpentry class is fantastic! I get SO much use out of it. 

Also, there was a LOT of gouges in the walls in there... 

I hate to think what the previous people did in there! Ha!

I don't enjoy the prep terribly much at all, but the painting and the end result are always made 100x better by good prep, so I do it anyway, much as I hate it! I learned this the hard way!