One Room Challenge

Welcome to week 3 of the fall 2017 One Room Challenge! Over the next three weeks I will transform my downstairs half bathroom from a brown disaster to a room that is light and bright.

PROJECT RECAP

In week one I presented my design plan. In week two I painted the trim and window. In week three I painted the walls. In week four I painted the bathroom cabinet. In week 5 my husband and I installed a new toilet and I sewed curtains for the window. In week 6 I began adding decor elements to the room.

Want to read more? You can catch up clicking the links below:

THE PROJECT PLAN

I will finish this project over the course of the next few weeks. This week my focus was on painting the walls a light brownish gray, Toasted White, by Behr. I am so excited to share the results with you! The room is starting to take shape. All of the brown paint is gone!

The project plan by week is as follows:

Week two – sand, prime, and paint trim and window
Week three – prime and paint walls
Week four – sand, prime, and paint cabinet
Week five – remove existing toilet and add a new toilet
Week six – sew new curtain and add decorative elements to the space

WEEK THREE | GETTING STARTED

Our bathroom is dark from a brown paint that just is not right for the space. Also, it includes wall paper that has been partially removed/repaired and then painted over. This is a product of the previous owners. This was by no means my doing. The goal of this project is to make the room bearable. I intend to complete an entire overhaul at a later date. Unfortunately, I don’t have the money to make it what I really want. That will just have to come later.

Last week I sanded, primed, and painted all of the trim and the window in the room. The trim looks great, but the room is still dark from the brown paint. This is my starting point for this week:

THE PROCESS

Before I started painting for the day, I papered the floor. This was important so no paint dripped on the hardwood floors. I am lucky because I had just the cutest little helper.

The space after the floor was covered. I did a pretty good job at getting the paper around the toilet. In the end, we didn’t get any paint on the floor. Success!

Before we started painting, I stirred the paint really well. We bought the paint earlier in the week. It was not even close to being mixed anymore. When I opened the can, there was a lot of displaced color. Remember to always stir your paint well before using. You should do this even if you just left the paint store!

I cut in around the trim and in the corners. My husband came right behind me with his roller. This is a little trick for covering cut-in lines. We didn’t do this in our guest room and it looks awful. That is a story for another day…

My husband used a 12 inch roller as it covers more surface than a 9 inch roller for the same amount of effort. I used a small 1/4 inch nap small roller. This allowed me to get really close to the trim as we were painting and to catch all of my husbands drips. He likes to use too much paint when rolling; this causes drips like crazy. Don’t be like my husband. Use the right amount of paint on your roller.

THE RESULTS

Painting this week did not take nearly as long as it did last week when I was painting the trim. It took the better part of 6 hours both Saturday and Sunday to get the room to where I felt it should be for the week. I might just feel this way because I was painting alone. With the husband’s help, we got through both coats of paint on Saturday.

We changed the light bulbs in the light fixture to lovely daylight bulbs. After doing this, I could see where I missed some spots with the trim. I spent the better part of Sunday putting another coat of paint on the trim. It looks much better now. The Toasted White paint next to the white trim looks so pretty!

We took down the outlet and switch cover for painting. My husband is going to change out the outlet and the light switch to white so the colors don’t clash with the room. Additionally, he is going to put up new switch and outlet covers in white.

The walls looks so nice. The walls even help the cabinet look nicer. Although the cabinet looks better in this newly painted space, I am still looking forward to painting it next week.

There is no help for the toilet. I am looking forward to seeing that thing go to the dump.

One Room Challenge | Week 3 Half Bath Makeover