Surprised Aren't Always Good...

As I mentioned earlier, The Builder and my two oldest boys were off at Boy Scout survival camp this past weekend, and I was going to use this 'free' time as my chance to re-do my downstairs guest bathroom. AKA - the powder room.  Now this is a SMALL room.  If this was my house, there would be a number of things I would change, starting with the vanity, changing out the mirror, and swapping the light fixture.  Not to mention having the door swing out so that you can come all the way into the bathroom and shot the door without fear that the doorknob will hit you someplace uncomfortable...as it does now.  Yes, that's as far as you can open the door before it hits the toilet.  Who does that?!  I would dearly love to have the door swing out, only then it's blocking the walk way to the laundry room if the door isn't kept closed all the time.  There is no winning situation on this door.  I think a pocket door would have been the most practical and maybe we'll talk to our landlords one day about making the change.  But for now, this is what we live with

You may have noticed that there is no toilet paper holder.  There was when we first moved in.  It was white and plastic and it was attached to the wall with command adhesive strips.  Yes, I kid you not, that's what they used to anchor it to the wall!  While this guest powder room doesn't get a lot of use - I really save it for guests because I have little boys who "miss" and even though they've been taught to clean up after the miss, knowing and doing is sometimes two different things and I want a bathroom that I know is clean and safe for guests at all times - it gets enough use that the toilet paper holder fell off the wall around Christmas time.  It has a lot to do with the horrible texture in the bathroom that the command adhesive strips couldn't adhere to. This whole house has a really rough texture on the walls.  But again, that's another post. Suffice it to say I've been very uninspired with this room due to the size.

This is the builders grade cabinet, stock mirror and original sink. I point this out because this is the only room in the entire house that I thought had never had an update done to it.  That sink is a mess.  Someone tried to paint out the scratches with appliance paint that were in the bottom of the sink.  The faucet is a calcium pock marked mess, and the scallop molded sink is hideous.  Thank you 1980 something for creating horrible sinks!  Again, I'm reluctant to make any significant changes because the house isn't mine. I've got great landlords, and they seem to welcome any improvements I'm willing to pay for and do the work for, but I'm not at that part yet.  I'm at the part where I'm willing to repaint and update the faucet only and learn to live with it for now.

Which brings me to my next...issue.

I thought it would be SO easy just to slap a coat of paint on.  I found a lovely color of Behr that would add just a little color but keep the room light so as not to make a small room seem smaller.  Off Shore Mist is the paint name, and it's one with the primer in it as well.  I figure this would be my best bet since I'm not sure on the quality of the paint in this room (there was a lot of leftover Walmart brand paint - which they don't make anymore - in the garage when we moved in, that they said we could touch up with if we needed, bleck) as there are rooms that have some streaky coats from cheap paint that is too thin that no one bothered to go back and touch up.  So here's a small sample of what it looks like:

I like it!  Soft and subtle, and my pops of red from all of my light house accessories will look really nice.  I'm going for a light and airy feeling since there is no natural light in this bathroom.  I'm even changing out the light bulbs to daylight  CFL's which give a much nice natural light feel.

So all was good and well after my little test corner.  I taped off my counters and around the door to prepare for painting.  Then I unscrewed the plates on the light switch and electrical outlets because I hate when people paint around them. It was then that I noticed a little remnant of wall paper behind those covers. So apparently I was wrong. This bathroom had had an update to do away with the silver and white something wallpaper that had been installed at one point.  So I figured I'd just peel those little scraps of wallpaper off because I didn't want to leave them behind. And low and behold, the WHOLE WALL stripped off!! Instead of stripping the wallpaper off, they put a rough texture into the paint and simply painted over the whole thing.  OMG!!! Which left me with this hot mess:

Seriously?!

So I had to wait for The Builder to come home so that he could mud the wall and pick of orange peel texture before I could even think about starting to paint.  He was mildly annoyed with me only because he said I should have never peeled off the wallpaper when I saw those tiny little scraps behind the outlet covers.  So he re-muded  the wall that evening for me (because I'm loved and he knew that this would drive me crazy every time I look at it - which it still is!!) and even knocked down all of the rough texture, which I am eternally grateful for.  As you can see, we are not going to strip the whole powder room.  If we ever bought the house, and yes, I would love to buy this house, it's something that we would consider then.  But one step at a time.  Now we have to get the texture on, and then finally I can get back to the painting that I want to do!  I found a beautiful small bathroom on another blog that I read that was the color palette inspiration for my bathroom, so I know what direction I'm going with this room. I'm still working on talking the builder into taking down that mirror and cutting it to fit a frame that we can hang on the wall, but that hasn't been 100% approved yet.  And I want a new faucet.  I don't think I can live with that hideous faucet once the room is repainted and pretty again. And yes, I did buy a new toilet paper holder that will not require command adhesive strips to attach it to the wall!!

More to come...