Good riddance pink tile, evergreens & coyotes.

First, since I didn’t have my camera cord yesterday, here’s a pic of the sweet 16er on Wednesday night…

On, now onto yesterday, as I mentioned, I took the day off work. On the weeks when I coordinate weddings on Saturdays, I {try to} take a day off during the week as my “Saturday.” I had a full list of jobs to tackle on my day off, and luckily, I had enough energy and motivation to cross off quite a few of the tasks.

First up, I met Eugene at the school where he teaches for a large garage sale fundraiser they were hosting in their gym. Here’s the loot we left with only eight bucks less in our wallet:

• two mason jars with metal handles for a buck total
• one salad dressing glass {I think} that I’m going to use for a vase for twenty-five cents
• a basketball for Eugene because our new house has a hoop, $1
• a huge, heavy, pretty mirror mirror for only $5.00!
• and my favorite item, a metal coffee pot for $0.75

I couldn’t believe the massive mirror was only five bucks!

   

I love this little tin guy. He will be displayed on a shelf in my kitchen for sure. :)

Once I got home, I kicked it into high gear & prepped the bathroom for paint. This meant puttying the holes in the walls, re-caulking around the shower, cleaning the walls & floor area, and removing the light fixture. I took an hour break to go on a lovely walk/jog with the pup & my friend, Lib, but other than that I worked on the bathroom pretty much nonstop until Eugene’s baseball game at 5:00 pm. I managed to complete the following:

1. Prep work for painting {my least favorite thing to do}
2. Paint a coat of primer/sealer on the new drywall ceiling
3. Paint a primer coat on the tile
4. Paint a primer coat on the walls
5. Paint one coat of ceiling paint over the primed & sealed ceiling
6. Paint first coat of color on the walls
7. Fall off the ladder into the bathtub
8. Plant bulbs in front of the house

Yes, you read that correctly, I fell off the ladder straight into the bath tub. Thankfully, the only thing I hurt was my thumb nail, and I didn’t hit my head or break anything – which I could have easily done! {Bathroom 1 – me 0.}

Since I’m not totally done with the painting, I’ll save most of the pics for the final product {and you’ll have to endure all these before pictures again then}, but to keep it real with ya, I’ll share where it is today.{Keep in mind, our bathroom is a really narrow & oddly shaped space, almost like a “Z,” so it’s ridiculously hard to take pictures of the space.} So to refresh your memory…

This is the wallpaper version, the way it was when we moved in…

 

And then, once I removed the nasty floral wallpaper – to my horror – I found coyotes and evergreen trees hand stamped as a border.

Yes I’m seriously. I couldn’t make this stuff up!  So I’ve been left with pink tile & coyotes {or are they reindeer?} staring at me while I wash my hands for the past two months.

Quality work.

To say the least, I was itching to paint. I started with the new drywall ceiling. I bought this primer & sealer and went to work.

Taking it from the pic on the left to the pic on the right:

  

Then I moved onto the tile. See, I’ve been doing some intense internet research on painting bathroom tile & testing various primers for weeks now, trying to find one that will successfully cover the pink porcelain bathroom wall tile & not scratch off easily. I tried Zinsser’s Water-Based primer {that I used for our kitchen cabinets}, and it covered well, but scratched right off with my fingernail, despite it’s claims on the label to work on tile. Next I tried a multipurpose primer from Valspar because it was recommended by the store employee & it had tile pictured on its label saying that it would stick well. Um, this was not the case. It didn’t even go on well, let alone stay on once it dried. {Fail #2.} Finally, I tried the oil based version of Zinsser’s Oil-Based primer & this was my pot o’ gold!

 

Winner!

Modeling a sexy mask we bought at Lowes and some paint-covered sweats, I primed all the tile using a roller & a cheap-o paint brush.

{image source}

It covered really well in my opinion. Eugene & I both decided that even though you can still see a little pink, one coat of primer should be enough.

The primer is super stinky & toxic, so I was thankful for the respirator mask & the fact that I could just throw away the roller & brush once I finished. Once I finished priming the tiles, I primed the walls, and painted the ceilings using the same paint we used for our living room & kitchen. And I finally got the first coat of color on the walls. So here’s where we are now, keeping in mind it should only get better with a few more coats…

 

  

 

I still have at least one more coat for the walls, and probably two coats of color {white} for the tile. Eugene was really impressed & thrilled when he came home to find that the coyotes, trees, & pink tiles were no more. He said it already looks way better, even though it’s only primed, and I have to agree!

I even somehow managed to find enough time to transplant my birthday bucket of bulbs to our front yard for a pleasant Spring full of blooms next year and watch my husband argue with some horribly awful umpires, get thrown out of a baseball game, and then “un-thrown” out right after that. {Sheesh.}

I’d call that one productive day off. :) And I absolutely loved looking in the bathroom mirror this morning without coyotes staring at me!

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