Bathroom Remodel - Part I: Texturing 101

We embarked on our next round of home improvements about the middle of August by starting to do some research into carpet, tile, paint colors, etc. We have a list of projects we hope to finish in the next couple of months. The biggest one is remodeling our master bathroom. We started this process a little over a week ago. We prepared the area last week and then actually started renovations over the weekend. The basic plan is to paint the walls, trim and doors, replace the linoleum with tile, and paint the cabinets. We did all of these things to the guest bathroom this past spring. The walls of our bathroom have been through a lot and were far from being smooth (see picture below). Most of the problems seem to have come from a previous owner not doing a very good job of removing the wallpaper and old fixtures before painting. Yes, our bathroom is purple....one of the many reasons to remodel.

  

We decided to apply texture to the walls to help cover up some of the imperfections but we still had to do some "patching" to try and get the walls close to being smooth. Here is Evan sanding some of the patches he made.

 

We had to make similar repairs in the guest bathroom before starting but the damage was not as extensive as in the master bathroom. There were about 25-30 "patches" Evan did in our master bathroom.

Next, we removed the baseboards and wall mounted light fixtures, sanded all the trim around the doors (3 closets and the door into the bathroom), taped, and put up plastic to cover big areas. Evan and I both worked to do all of these things and got them done by the time we went to bed on Friday. It was pretty funny to see the original wall paper hiding behind the lights above the mirror (see picture below). Our bathroom is pretty dark as it is but it would have felt like a cave with navy blue wall paper. As Evan was pulling up the baseboards, he found evidence that there used to be navy blue carpet in the bathroom too! Go 80s!

 

Saturday morning we sanded the second set of patches we made on Friday and then wiped down all the walls to get all the dust off. We went to Home Depot while we were waiting for everything to dry to get a few more supplies including a paint sprayer for painting all the interior doors. We figured we could work on that project while we were waiting for paint to dry in the bathroom. This was our 5th trip to Home Depot since starting on this round of home improvements and by the end of the weekend we had made 7 trips. Thankfully there is a Depot that is about 5 minutes away from our house so it isn't a big hassel when we find ourselves going once a day.

Saturday afternoon we started to texture the walls in the bathroom. In the guest bathroom, we used the texture that you add to the paint and while it was easy and it looks OK, we definitely wanted to try something else for this bathroom. After a bunch of research and advice from friends, we decided to roll on the texture. All there is to it is mixing joint compound with water until it has a pancake batter consistency and then rolling it on the wall with a roller that has a large nap. We went for 1/2 inch nap since this is what we had read about at multiple sites online. Evan started with the big roller and I started with the small one on the small spaces. We used a 4 inch brush to do the corners and edges. Some of it looked okay, some of it did not. Basically, it was obvious that there were two different people with two different techniques applying the texture. We stopped with about half of the bathroom completed deciding to sand it all off the next day and start over with only one of us doing the texture. This picture shows where we got to by the end of Saturday.

Sunday we didn't get much done because we both had to be at church really early (6:45 AM) to help with the music ministry and when we got home at 3:00 we both just wanted to take a nap. We woke up at 5:00 and went to the Depot to get some supplies. After church we were at our ABF (Adult Bible Fellowship - like Sunday School) leaders meeting at one of the leader couple's house and got some tips from them on the texturing. Gail and Jose built their own house (they did most of the work themselves) some years ago and have a lot of wisdom in this area. Evan and I were admiring their texture in their kitchen and dining room and Jose told us he used a roller with the largest nap he could find and thinned out the joint compound to more of a paint consistency. This was encouraging since of the texturing we did, the part that had looked the best was the part done with the paint brush, but the thought of having to do that over the whole bathroom was intimidating. We got a 1 1/4 inch nap roller and some drywall to do some more practicing before starting on the bathroom again. Sunday night we sanded down all the texture we had put up the day before so that we could start over on Monday. I wish we would have gotten pictures because of course, the dust was everywhere. I was following Evan and the sander with the shop vac but we both were still pretty dusty :) I was thankful that a few days earlier I had covered our closets (inside the doors) with a sheet of plastic to block out dust. Even with the doors closed, there was a thin layer of very fine dust on the plastic sheets.

On Monday, we decided that I would do the texturing. Evan doesn't really like doing anything that involves/resembles painting. He will do it, but he prefer not to. He did the yard work while I textured. Since the yard work is usually my job, and I like to paint, I was fine with the set up :) It took about 5-6 hours to texture the entire bathroom but it will be worth it. We both think it is going to end up looking great once it is all painted. If it would have been a bedroom, I think it would have gone faster, there were just alot of edges, corners, and small spots I had to finish with the brush and that made it a longer job. Here are some pictures of me doing the finishing touches with the brush and the finished product. Yes, I am wearing a shower cap because when rolling this stuff, just like with paint, it tends to fly off.

 

 

Depending on how my back feels tomorrow, and how much time I have, I will prime the bathroom tomorrow and then paint the following day. Hopefully by the end of the week, the painting of the walls will be done!