Let’s Caulk it out

I think we all now know that I have a love for caulk. I just want to caulk everything! But that is not an option. I did however need to caulk a few more areas in the bathroom, yippee skippee right? That’s what I thought! As I last left off with the master bath, I had removed the counter splash guards…

The walls are now all painted blue so you cannot see any of that spackle hanging out anymore, but what you can see are some crazy gaps between the wall and the counter top….

Careful, don’t get too close, you may fall in! This was in need of some caulk! So, I happily made my way to the garage to get my caulking supplies…

Pretty extensive supplies huh?

From there I just went my normal route of taping off the areas that I wanted caulk, then I plopped some caulk down…

While I was at it I found a few other areas that I thought needed some caulk as well…

Wanna see the results? Good thing cause here they come…

BOOM! Look at that!

Much better!

Here is the back of the countertop…

This piece of trim just had a crack down the side, so I filled that right in.

I also did some of the trim near the floor that had some cracks. Fortunately we still have these beautiful laminate floors! blah!

And around the toilet…

And next to the shower…

How about a close up?

Here is how the bathroom looks today…

I decided to change out the countainers on the counter to something with less of a tealish tint.

We also took the door off of the “toilet room”, we really hate having a separate room for our toilet, just seems like a waste of space.

We cannot wait to renovate this entire room, as for now we are going to live with everything as is. We are saving our pennies and one day we will have a brand new bathroom! Can’t wait.

Here is one more before and after of this quick update on our bath…

Better? I hope so!

So long dancing folks of the 1800’s

You don’t know any dancing people from the 1800’s?  I will share mine with you then…

All in pink as well, with plaid trim to boot!  Look at them with their carefree dancing, looks like a blast.  In case you are wondering this is the border that our guest room was sporting.

You didn’t know that their were dancing people on that border did you?  Lets get one more close up…

The previous paint job is great as well, they didn’t get any of the wall color on the ceiling.

I decided my first step in improving this room would be to remove this border.  First things first, I had to select what method I was going to use to remove this wallpaper border.  My mom had told me that my sister had used liquid fabric softener diluted with warm water.  I had never heard of this before, but I had both of these things on hand, figured I should give it a shot.  Also, I would like to add that my sister purchased a home with wallpaper on every surface and has successfully removed all of it and lived to tell the story. I figured it might be a good idea to take her advice.  So, I got my supplies ready…

and

Pretty complicated stuff I’m working with here.

I just added approximately one part liquid fabric softener to 6 parts hot water and came up with this….

Wallpapers worst nightmare!

First I moved all of our junk/furniture to the middle of the room.  This room is currently being used as an extra storage/junk room.  I then grabbed my step ladder and got to it.

I just sprayed the concoction directly on the border and let it sit for a minute.  In the meantime I was wiping away all of the drippage. which you can sort of see in the unclear photo below:

I grabbed a towel immediately and kept it with me the rest of the time to clean up the dripping of my fabric softener and water concoction.

From there I started peeling the border back with my metal putty knife.

Like so.  Once I got a good corner up I just used my hands to pull the paper away from the wall.

Most times this is what would happen…

The top layer of the wallpaper would pull away easily but the glue and second papery layer still remained on the wall.

So I went back and sprayed the second layer of paper, which seemed to soak up the fabric softener mix a lot better.

This time around I was able to peel up an edge and pull the paper right off.  A few peices usually stuck on the wall but I just used the putty knife to scrape those right off.  I continued with this method peeling the first layer and going back to get the remaining paper backing in my second attempt.  After about a half an hour I was well on my way and had a good pace going.

And I was also leaving a pretty decent mess in my tracks…

After about an hour and a half total I was left with this…

And this mess to clean…

From there, I went to town cleaning up the shredded wallpaper that was everywhere.  I also cleaned the walls and all of the trim and then removed all of the switch plates and old nails from the walls.

I now have a blank slate and I am ready to start painting!  Wahoo I am on my way to my own art/office/storage room! Would you like a list of to dos? Okay fine!

To do:

1. Remove border.
2. Clean walls and trim.
3. Paint trim and walls.
4. Update outlets and light switch.
5. Make window treatment.
6. Make shelves for walls.
7. Get new desk.
8. Figure out a storage system for all of my art/craft supplies.
9. Organize all of the art/craft supplies.
10. Add decorations!
11. Enjoy my new room!

There you have it, a new to do list to accomplish.

Whale, whale, whale, what do we have here?

Whales have invaded our home and I’m loving it!  I’m not losing it, I just got the art I ordered for the bathroom. What do you think it looks like…

Yup… a walrus flossing his teeth! Don’t you love it?  I think it will add a touch of humor to our newly finished guest bathroom.  I also got this…

A beaver brushing his teeth!

JUST KIDDING:) haha.  I do think these are pretty sweet, for possibly a child’s bath maybe.  But back to business, our new art has to do with whales! Yes, hence the crazy title.  Here is what I got…

Aren’t they Ah-mazing?  I fell in love with them a while ago when I came across them on etsy.  They are both prints of watercolors done by an artist named Michelle Morin who is from Dover, NH.  Her stuff is so unique.  Her shop is called unitedthread, check it out guys. She even included a cute little hand written note with the shipment.

Let’s take a closer look at her stunning whales…

more?

I have had my eye on these whales for a while, but I didn’t have a spot for them until now! Once they came in the mail I couldn’t wait to get them up on the wall.  So I went out to Michael’s to find the perfect frames for them.

I came home with these guys!  They fortunately match the vanity and mirror perfectly, apparently I have superb guessing when it comes to matching wood tones.  They were both on sale for 40% off, the smaller of the two was originally $19.99, which brought it to $12 on sale.  The larger was originally $39.99, which made it $24 on sale.  Woo hoo for a good sale, right?  They both came with a double mat, which gives it a little shadow action going on.  I find it is actually usually cheaper to purchase a pre-matted frame than to buy the frame and mat separately.  I then cleaned the glass good with Windex and popped my new art in them!

Do they make you happy?  Because they make me happy.  I wanted to get them on the wall immediately, but when Justin went to hang them we noticed the wall closest to the sink was not looking too hot.  It is where we removed the medicine cabinet and the wall was still not completely smooth.

So I got out the spackle and putty knife and went to town.  Once it dried I sanded it down again really well.  I did this a few times until I thought it was looking pretty smooth.

While I was at it I noticed the wall surrounding the light also wasn’t looking too hot, so I worked on that area as well. The people who lived here before us just painted around the wall light without taking it down, when we took it down the wall that was surrounding it was raised a little more than the rest of the wall because of the additional coats of paint.  I guess I didn’t get that spot good enough when sanding the first time around.

After I felt confident with my sanding I got the paint out and touched up both areas.  Once it dried it was looking much better and it was time to hang some art!

One whale up!

How about 6 more?

I love these stacked whales.

Here they are peaking around the door, sneaky little whales.

I love this bathroom now.  I am so glad Justin convinced me to demo it. I find myself stopping by the guest bathroom just to take a peak at our new art:)