Here's how we (and by we, I mostly mean B) acccomplished the project.
1. Remove tile from the wall. The former owners put brown tile on the wall which looked just ok with our red bathroom but which wouldn't work with our new bathroom. Off it came! B used a special Dremel attachment and a chisel. He discovered that the tile had been mounted on plaster, which meant that he had to do step 3.
2. Remove the top from the vanity.
I wasn't even home when B did this, but he said it was easy. We're not sure what to do with it, but it's perfectly functional and still has a sink, faucet, and drain. I was hoping we could donate it to Habitat for Humanity, but the single effort that I made toward this end was not productive--will have to try calling this week.
3. Replaster the indented parts where the tile was.
This multi-day process (plaster, let it dry, then sand; repeat) resulted in a lot of plaster dust blowing around the downstairs. But the end result was great.
4. Paint!
Here's where I got involved. My first choice was a mauve-y red, but the color in the sink was more mauve than red, and in a darkened room the paint chip looked brownish, and I was concerned that the room would not harmonize with the rest of the house. House harmony is important. A better option was green, which is in both the sink and the rest of the house. First, I touched up the corners where the wall meets ceiling using white ceiling paint, and then we taped and started painting.
Two years ago when we first painted the bathroom, we had an epic disagreement over painting style, but we've come a long way since then. Our only minor tiff came when I saw that B was getting paint on the ceiling. We switched jobs--I painted high and he painted low--and we were good to go. (I got paint on the ceiling, too--we're going to have to touch up again.)
We did two coats of a tinted primer (which we will reuse when we paint our hallway a lighter green and cover up the--of course--brown that the former owners chose) followed by two coats of the chosen green, and then we let it dry over night. I was amazed at how well the green covered the red. After the two coats of primer, you couldn't even tell that the walls had been red. This principle is well known to make-up-wearing women--you use green powder to tone down a reddish face. As my problem is usually the absence of color, you won't find any green powder in my make-up kit.5. Assemble our new space saver/etagere.
We did this step between coats of paint. The etagere is made of bamboo and came from Overstock, and it was mostly a good purchase. The intructions were ok, but B had to perform some handyman work to adapt it to fit in the space that we have. No matter--it looks great now, and good thing, because we had to assemble it in place and can never remove it without destroying it. I hope the future owners of our condo like it because they will be inheriting it.
The new etagere offers more storage than the previous etagere, which I was considering moving to my bathroom. I'm not sure if I can stand to keep it in the house anymore, so I think it will be joining the mosaic table and computer desk at the Salvation Army. Slowly, slowly, we rid ourselves of our particle board furnishings.
6. Reattach the mirror, towel rack, and door.
Easy as pie, for me, anyway. B did the heavy lifting. I held the screwdriver.
7. Attach the new granite vanity top.
This step was a little tricky because our wall corner was greater than 90 degrees, so the granite didn't sit flush against both sides. No worries--we tried to make it equidistant from each edge and hoped that the side- and backsplashes would hide the fudging. And they do.
8. Attach the sink, faucet, and drain, and hook up the plumbing.
I'm not sure what B did, but there was a leak and some angry words. But now it's all better.
And now we have a working sink and a brand-new bathroom! I love the wall color, the sink, the granite, the faucet, and especially the way that they look together. We accomplished a huge value-added renovation at a pretty low cost (compared to most bathroom renovations, anyway). Keeping the existing vanity was a big saver, and it looks fantastic with its new topper.
(The green didn't come through well on the cell phone camera--in person, it looks like the color of edamame pods.)
Oh, so there was a casualty. It's minor. In the middle of painting, the outlet stopped working, and our working light went out. And the outlet is still on strike. I theorized that plaster dust worked its way in there and did something bad. But the good news is that we never use that outlet! Hooray--that means we don't have to fix it!
No comments:
Post a Comment