1/4 of a new bathroom

About … gosh, I don’t even remember… two or three months ago, I bought some paint to repaint my bathroom. It’s a big bathroom and figuring square footage makes my eyes glaze over so I bought two cans of each of the two colors I wanted to use. I wasn’t 100% sure if I wanted to do three walls in one color and one in the other color… or two and two…

I bought a couple of samples, first, and after testing out on the walls, went with a bright green and a bright yellow. But something kept holding me back from actually starting. Was it that I didn’t want to take all the stuff off the walls? I didn’t want to tape? I didn’t really know yet which walls I wanted yellow, and which green? What if I did all the walls running one way, one color, and all the walls running the other way, the other color. Except that I have two walls that kind of jut out; one divides the tub from the shower, and one gives a tiny bit of privacy to the toilet (and makes a corner for the linen closet). Is that too much color? And I’ll have to move all those plants over the tub. And take down those two darn mirrors that every time I look at I wish were medicine cabinets instead of large mirrors. What if I just left the mirror wall the terrible dull brownish whatever the fuck this dull color is that is EVERY wall of the whole house? What if I…. gaaaaaaaaaaahhhhhhhhhh. Yeah. I drug that shit out for a while.

I’m in this Handy Woman group on Facebook. It’s all women, all doing their own repairs and remodels, many of them newly divorced or newly widowed, and all of them supportive and willing to drop advice when they’re professionals. It’s a great group, and I’ve gotten a lot of inspiration from it.

One of the things that made me go “ooooo” was someone who did a whole wall of their kitchen in peel-and-stick tiles. I liked it. I really, really liked it. So much that I want to do my kitchen in a similar fashion. I’ve always wanted a brick wall in my kitchen. But I can’t even get started on the damn bathroom! How do I think I can buckle down and do a kitchen wall? Which will also mean painting the rest of the kitchen? And what if I mess the peel-and-stick tile up?

Or … what if I tried the tiles out… IN THE BATHROOM????? What if I did a small space in those, just to see how they’d work? I don’t have to commit to doing the whole bathroom right now, I really don’t want to take the mirrors down, that’s such a hassle… OK, so where would I do tiles? Well, duh, near the shower. OK. So what if I just did that one wall, then? What if I painted one wall, and did part of it in the peel-and-stick tiles? That couldn’t take more than a day, could it?

Spoiler: it took two days. I started off by painting those damn strips that are always every few feet on the wall in mobile homes. Christ, I hate those things. I did a lot of reading before deciding what to do, people who have renovated mobile homes and the pros and cons of painting them the same, different, whatever. I decided to paint them the same color as the wall on the wall, but on the place were I was going to do the tile, I only painted them, and about a quarter to half inch on either side. I did them all first so I could be sure to get the sides, since I didn’t know how well the roller would work on the different wall heights. Then I painted a couple inches on the bottom, too, so I wouldn’t get the roller too close to the floor.

I waffled a little on what to do on the tub side of the wall. At first I was thinking I might paint the whole thing dark green, but I didn’t want to do it NOW, so I just sort of worked on the trim a couple of inches. After I started on the tile, though, I decided I want to do that whole little wall with tile, so today I extended the green on the trim all around the wall.

Maybe nobody will notice I can’t reach that corner….

OK; brought in my smallest ladder, since the Stepstool of Awesomeness was just a foot too low…. I did all of the above, and the first coat of green, yesterday. I was hoping to get away with just the one coat, but no suck luck. I could tell as it was drying that I’d need to do a second coat, so I did that first thing this morning.

Then I started the peel-and-stick tile and HOLY SHIT I LOVE IT SO MUCH. I am 100% glad I decided to try it out in the bathroom, that only I will see, first, though. Before doing the kitchen that will be seen by everyone. Even just doing this much taught me so much. And I’m glad I watched a few YouTube videos first. Even so, I messed up cutting some of the sheets once I got to the top where there’s an angle. Holy shit, that angle was a pain.

Don’t worry, I wasn’t working unsupervised.

I messed up in about a hundred places, but I LOVE IT SO MUCH! I’m glad I overbought (it comes with ten 12×12 sheets in a box, and I bought three boxes) because there were definitely a couple of places I had to cut twice. Here’s one corner of the shower, finished. I love it with the green trim – I thought about going with the yellow, to make it a bit brighter, but I feel like the green really makes the tile pop. I think if I’d gone with the light yellow, it would have stood out too much and detracted from the tile.

It probably wouldn’t have taken so long, but the angles were killing me. Get on the stepstool (actually, inside the shower I had to use a chair, because the stepstool was about two inches too wide to fit in between the dumb little stick-out shelf/foot rest things that are in there. I really don’t love this shower. BUT ANYWAY.) So. Climb up with sheet of tile. Try to fold tile at angle. Or try to draw line on back of tile for cutting. Or try to mark with a box cutter as I’m pressing it into the angle. Climb down, cut tile in kitchen with box cutter and ruler on scrap wood so as not to fuck up Tim’s butcher block. Climb back up, double-check fit. Peel off back. Press into place. Peel off sheer plastic cover. Press down any parts I missed. Measure for next piece (climbing down and back up if I’ve forgotten to put my measuring tape back in my pocket). There was a lot of ups and downs. I’m giving myself a pass on the treadmill today even though I haven’t really WALKED that much. I’ve gone up and down and up and down and reached and bent over and up and down…. it’s a workout!

This almost makes me want to hurry up and paint the other three walls! And ugh, I’m going to have to buy some white to touch up where I hit the roller against the ceiling. SOMEBODY licked the back of my foot while I was standing on the ladder, and my arm jumped. Sigh.

One more view? OK! OMG Y’ALL I LOVE THAT TILE SO MUCH, I’M SO GLAD I DID IT!!!!!!! Also the bottom of my shower is gross. Sorry. I swear that hard water crap just grows back days after I try to clean it all off.