The hallway bathroom: before and after

Some more before and after pics today; this room feels a million times different than it did when we bought the house. 

Here are some pics of the hallway bathroom (the main upstairs bathroom), when we bought the house.  It had dark-stained molding, a dark-stained vanity, and more of the same formal wallpaper that was in the entry hall.  It also had a super cool avocado-colored laminate sink top.  This was a 1970's style point I loved.  I had to keep it!

Like the rest of the house, this bathroom felt very dark.

I like wallpaper, but I don't think I would have liked this even when it was fresh and new.

The bathroom is separated into two parts, the sink half and the toilet/bathtub half.

People always comment on the sunken tub.

I think it's a really unique feature.

Below is a photo-in-progress.  This is after I spent two weeks deglossing all the molding and putting five coats of white paint on.

Another photo-in-progress below.

I've removed wallpaper many times in my life, but I've never had the difficulty I had removing it in the hallway and bath of this house.  Whoever wallpapered this room meant business!

It took a really long time getting the wallpaper off all the corners and around the mirror, etc.

Removing it from around and behind the light fixture was a nightmare.

But I did it!

Removing the wallpaper exposed yellow paint, I assume the original color.

When we removed the paper from the wall on the side of the vanity, we found this huge (about 10") hole in the wall.  We had no idea it was there, because it had just been papered over.

We're sure it was the location of one of the built in radio/intercom systems that are in every room of the house.  Hard to believe such advanced technology could become obsolete! 😉

Here's the wall after my husband patched and resurfaced it.  He had to do this in multiple places in the hall as well.  It's what took us so long to get these rooms done.

Aside from the huge hole, after removing the wallpaper, there were glue remnants that were impossible to get off in hard-to-reach areas around the mirror and light.

The texture looked a little bumpy and I tried to sand it, but ended up just having to leave it.

Here is the bathroom after.

I knew when I first saw the avocado countertop, that I wanted to paint the vanity orange.

(We kept the original drawer pulls - they have great 70's style - but scrubbed all the tarnish off them.)

I painted the walls an ivory-yellow color, and put a green stripe behind the light fixture.

I wanted to disguise some of the uneven wall surface; I think it worked pretty well.

I love this wall!

I wanted to do something fun and creative with the wall; at first I wanted to try to paint some "wallpaper."  But I ran out of time and it just seemed too complicated.

So I ordered some stencils and painted some 1970's-style flowers on the wall, using leftover paint from other walls and projects in the house.

This was harder to do than I thought!

After painting the flowers with the stencils, they all pretty much looked like this.  I was afraid I was going to have to paint over all of them...

But I got some wall paint, and painted over the messy edges (as if the paintbrush was an eraser).

This actually worked really well and gave all the flowers clean edges.

I don't have steady hands, so this is one of my successful projects that I'm very proud of.

I love these vintage plates: one has all the presidents (ends with George Bush), the other is a bicentennial plate.  My dad always called me his "bicentennial baby" because I was born in 1976.

And of course, my little emoji.

The new wall paint (in this half of the room) is green with a yellow tint - it seemed to match the avocado sink top and went well with the 70's harvest gold bathtub.

This half of the bathroom already had this beautiful tile work.

Like the rest of the house, this room feels so different now.  Lighter and brighter, fresh and clean!

The final change?  My husband removed the old, non-working bathroom vent fan and replaced it with a new one.  In the process, he managed to drill his finger with his electric drill.  It was one of those accidents with enough blood that - although it's still bad - you feel relief afterward that no bone was broken or infection caused.

When I say a lot of blood, sweat and tears went into the work on this house, I mean it!