Thrifty bathroom facelift

I had a little fun this week.  I painted the bathroom.  In our house we call this the girls' bathroom, I guess because it was previously pink and flowery.  Let me say I really liked the bathroom the way it was.  The wallpaper, however; was probably original to the house which was built in the 70's.   It was a floral metallic Impressionist  kind of print.  I have always liked the Impressionists, particularly Monet so it pleased my eye.  Unfortunately, the seams were pulling away from the wall.  I have contemplated (for about two years)  whether to try and fix the seams, or repaint.   Finally tired of the peeling seams, I opted for paint.  I knew what my wall would look like once I peeled the wallpaper, because I have done this once already in another bathroom.  Only the pattern comes off of the wall, and it leaves a fuzzy texture behind.  This can be removed as well with a little water spray and elbow grease, but I am lazy!!  I have not wanted to go to the trouble of removal.  With that being said, I have to give full credit to this decorating idea to my niece Alyssa Urban.  Her bathroom walls look the same, but are a different color.

 Here are the pictures of the previous paper.  You can see how the seams were pulling away from the wall.

 

Deciding on a color was tough. I was going to go with a pink rose color to match the existing shower curtain and towels.  I thought I had some paint lying around in that shade but I didn't so I looked around some more.  I found a gallon of paint in a neutral shade.  It was given to me by our painter a couple of years ago.  He just had it "lying around".  So the price was right!! Free.  I had to buy a new roller and I got white tissue paper at the Dollar Tree.  Twenty sheets.  I also had a little extra lying around the house from gift wrapping. Cost so far?  $4.78

Yes.  I said tissue paper.  I gave my walls a Feaux finish using tissue paper.  It is very simple but also quite messy.  

• Step One:  Tear the edges off of the tissue paper  Keep some of the strips to place along the trim and then wad the paper up.  
• Step Two:  Smooth out the papers and place them in a  stack.
• Step Three:  Paint  lines along the trim.  It is very difficult to line up a full sheet of tissue paper with the ceiling or floor.
• Step Four:  Put on glovesand then with a roller, paint an area slightly larger than the tissue paper.  While the paint is still wet, press the tisssue on to the wall and smooth out the wrinkles.  There is no set look.  Make it as bumpy as you wish.
• Step 5:  Paint over the tissue paper with the roller.  Be sure to keep a wet edge and repeat the process. If you don't have a wet edge the tissue paper won't stick. That's it!

Here is the picture of the wall in progress:  

 Warning, this is not for you if you are in any way inclined to perfectionism, or OCD, or any other term you might want to call such tendancies.  This method is for those who want to hide imperfections, and still have a cool look on the wall.  Or those who are too lazy to scrape wallpaper, or have bumpy drywall :-).  

Okay, so that being said at this point I now have a bathroom with a shower curtain and towels that do not match.  I have no idea what I am going to do to coordinate with the new look.  Possibly a fancy new shower curtain in a coordinating color.  I'm not in a hurry to finish that.  I will get to it when the budget allows, UNTIL...I stopped at a garage sale on Thursday.  There sat a full shower set for only $15.  Set includes:  two bathmats, one hand towel, shower curtain and matching tabs, wastebasket, a planter, and a cute picture of a palm tree.  I actually liked it and low and behold it matched.  SOLD!   So...who is keeping up?  That brings my total cost to $19.78. 

All I am missing now is the shower liner.  I chose K-Mart because it is close to the house and all I needed was one quick item.  Ummm...guess what peeps?  K-Mart still sells the shower set, and the curtain alone was on SALE for $16.99.   Yay!  Now I am feeling even better about my garage sale find and savings.  Also if I need a soap dish or something like that I know where to go.  So I purchased the liner for $4.98 and went home.  Wait...I had some $$$ on my rewards card so the liner was more like $2.98.  Happy, Happy thrifty me!!!

The bottom line:  Under $25 for a bathroom facelift.  The final test:  My daughter, and I quote: "I like it much better than my old bathroom."  "I love palm trees."  Me, too girl.  

The Reveal

 If you look above the picture you can see the texture on the wall.  I took down the old pink towels that don't match anymore, and I'm not sure when I will replace them.  The pic is a little grainy because I lowered the resolution on my phone camera. 

Thanks again, Alyssa.

Blessings,  

Monica