Bathroom progress

I am happy to report that I actually did what I said I'd do this weekend - I started on the bathroom! I didn't get quite as far as I originally planned, but that's okay. I'm super excited about this project!
I had planned to get a lot of the prep work done Saturday afternoon while C took her nap. But the day turned out differently than I imagined, and in a good way. C and I met up Saturday morning with my friend Ashley and her daughter, who is 4 months younger than C. C says Aubrey is her best friend. ( :  Anyway, we went to a church in town that was having a craft fair. I found the perfect hair bow to go with C's birthday/Christmas dress (since her birthday is December 21 we do a two-fer in the dress department), and I even bought myself some adorable bobby pins with fabric flowers on them. After that, we ran errands around town and ate lunch at a local Mexican restaurant - yum! We finally ended up at Lowes where I bought a sample of the paint color me and C chose and a gallon of Killz (to cover up the wallpaper in the bathroom). On the way home, the babies fell asleep, so Ashley and I sat in the car for a while talking. It was so nice! When the babies woke up, we went inside Ashley's house and let them play a while before C and I headed home. So C didn't take her super long afternoon nap at home like I planned, and I didn't get anything done in the bathroom Saturday, but that's okay because we had so much fun that day.

Yesterday when C went down for her nap, I got to work. DH helped me. I kept telling him I could do it and he didn't have to help, but I think he's more excited than I am that this bathroom is finally getting redone! Before I continue, here's some "before" pictures. You can see why the bathroom desperately needs a makeover!

Edited to add: Okay, blogger originally rotated these pictures and wouldn't let me rotate them back. So I did a search for how to fix this problem. Clearly, the solution did not work. *sigh* Now they look all distorted...but at least you can get the idea now without straining your neck!

That shelf thingy over the toilet...I'm trying to decide if I want to use that again. If I do, I'll spray paint it white. I might end up hanging it lower on the wall, and hang a picture of some sort above it. I'm not sure yet. I do like it because it can hold a hand towel, but do I really want a towel hanging over the toilet??

I also plan to have a mirror cut to go between the sink and the medicine cabinet. This will be C's bathroom and she won't be able see herself in that high mirror for years. I would love to do away with that cabinet completely, but that would require much more work than we need to take on right now, since the lights are wired into it....so we'll just deal with it. (Plus, I do like the extra storage.)

That patch of green on the wall will be the new color. I was trying it out Saturday. I may end up going a shade darker, though. That's awfully light!

Oh, and you can see the lovely purplish counter top again. I told you, they're in almost every room of the house!! Even the built-in bookshelves in the living room have that same ugliness. *sigh*

This closet holds towels mainly. It also hides my cat's litter box. Thankfully, the closet is already solid white inside, so I won't be doing anything in there. *sigh* of relief!

And this shower curtain actually goes with the color I want the walls to be. Of course, it doesn't match at all now, but I've used it for 3 years because I knew eventually it would match the walls...lol. 

Once we got everything off the walls, I realized this won't be quite as bad as I originally thought. There is quite a bit of open space on the walls in here, so it will be pretty easy to paint. Not at all like the master bathroom. I'm not really looking forward to some places, like around the toilet, under the medicine cabinet, and above the shower, but it won't be that bad.

Yesterday, I took a razor blade and cut off all the edges of the wallpaper that were rolling up. We were going to glue them back down, but someone told DH last week its best to cut them off. You have to mud over it anyway, so I figured we might as well not worry about workin with glue. After that, I sanded everything so it was as smooth as possible. Then DH went behind me and slapped mud over all the wallpaper seams and all the imperfections in the walls. I did some of this, but DH did the majority for me. That's all we could do yesterday. The mud has to dry over night. The next time I have a chance to work in there, I'll sand everything down again, and then we'll be ready for the Killz!

Today I'm going to Lowes to buy the paint for the walls and the trim. Thank goodness I remember the name of the trim throughout the house (Betsy's Linen) because we have none left like I thought. I'd hoped to work in there tonight, but I just remembered that I'd planned to go to the La Leche League meeting tonight, so the bathroom will most likely be put off for another day this week. No worries. (I'm actually hoping that since C and I won't be home tonight, DH will jump in there and sand for me....hehe!)

So before I sign off, here's a pic I took this morning of one wall in there.

No, those aren't wallpaper seams running horizontally along that wall...at some point in the life of this bathroom, someone had something adhered to the wall there. The residue was left behind and I tried my hardest to scrape it off with the razor blade, but most of it wouldn't budge. If you look at the 2nd picture above you can see the brown line....yeah. Be kind to your walls, people. Someone else may have to deal with your mistakes someday!!