The Main Bath Project - Paint and Paint Chips

I haven't posted a lot about our main bathroom, which is currently our only full bathroom until the new master bath is finished. It's original - and not in a good way. It's covered in lots of black and white tile, with a bunch of cracks and broken pieces. The walls are a textured wallpaper that has been painted white, making it impossible to remove, while also being sort of fuzzy and always dirty. There's no vent, so trapped moisture has made a lot of paint peel and chip off -- which is really horrible in the shaft of the skylight - so the skylight window (which is meant to open and close in a very cool way) just stays closed all the time to prevent chips from raining down. Three years ago I tried to just clean up the skylight window, and we've done basically nothing since. The feeling has always been that someday we would gut it, so there was no point in bothering to do anything until then.

Well, now we have come to realize that we probably won't get to gut it ever. Our contractor explained that the tile is set in a bed of concrete and requires a jackhammer to remove, so he gave us a rough estimate of $20k to refinish it. We're never going to have a spare $20k to pay them, and I really draw the line of DIY at jackhammers, so I think the tile is staying put. That means that all we can do it clean it up and make some small tweaks to make it a little more functional and attractive.

While the contractors work on ripping apart the rest of the house, I'm focused on this bathroom. It's my new weekend project. We're starting with just getting rid of the falling paint chips.

Step 1: Scrape off the Loose Paint
Armed with a long scrap piece of wood with a paint scraper taped to its end - I got up on a ladder and poked all the paint in the skylight loose. Since I can't get above the swing window, I was pretty limited in what I could reach, but managed to do a decent job just poking at everything blindly with my eyes squeezed closed. This made a huge mess, which I then spent a couple hours cleaning up.

filthy skylight covered in paint chips

more pealing paint on the ceiling above the shower

 

see look - I tried to protect things

lots of pealing paint in the skylight shaft

after scraping - ugly, but no more pealing paint

Step 2: Paint Everything White
Once the chips were all scraped loose, I grabbed a gallon of primer and painted the skylight shaft and the ceiling white. To get up there - I was standing on the stepping stool, and then using an extender to get the paint roller as high as possible - so I'm not going to claim this was a work of precision. But I was able to get most spots pretty well. My hope is that it looks just good enough that no one will ever actually look at it.

skylight all white 

ceiling going white - so much brighter!

Step 3: Walls get Painted

So once the ceiling was all white and chip-free, the walls started looking really crappy. I pulled out the same gray that we have throughout the house to give everything a quick coat. Not only did it cover up all the smudges and discolored spots - but it added a nice contrast to make the tiles really pop and help blend this room in with the rest of the house. 

dirty shadow of art that used to be on the wall

 

so dingey

new paint!

no more chips and smudges 

no more dirt shadow

So - even though I always wanted to remove these walls and tile altogether - I think it looks a lot better. Just getting rid of the pealing paint so that you can confidently open the skylight window is a huge improvement. But just as soon as you make one thing nicer - now the trim and the door seem like eyesores in need of improvement - so maybe that's the next weekend project.