J & A Master Bathroom:: And Moving On To Plan B

I have been so anxious to work on J & A’s master bathroom that I ripped all of the wallpaper down several weeks ago–way before I was even close to being finished with the bedroom. Literally, one day I dropped everything I was doing in the bedroom, marched right into the bathroom, and started ripping. I just couldn’t take looking at that wallpaper anymore.



Bathroom with wallpaper and pinkish beige carpet.  Definitely in need of a makeover!

 It took me about 15 minutes to remove every bit of wallpaper from those walls.  How incredibly fortunate!

And almost immediately, I knew exactly the wall treatment I wanted to do in there.  I’ve been planning it and waiting anxiously to get started for a while now.  As soon as I was finished with the bedroom, I headed to Home Depot to purchase the supplies for the walls, and as soon as I had a chance, I got started.

Well, it didn’t take long for me to decide that I wanted to scrap that wall treatment idea.  It was yet another idea that looked so much better in my head than it did in person.

I had originally planned to do the crinkled brown paper wall treatment. Have you seen that? I did it in the entryway in our house in Oregon, and I absolutely loved it. I mean, it really looked fantastic in my entryway.  But it absolutely wasn’t working for me in this bathroom.  It’s almost as if rooms have personalities, and they’ll let you know what they need.  (Okay, am I losing it, or do you know what I mean?)

But seriously, how can something look so great in my entryway (I wish I had a picture to show you!), and then look terrible in this bathroom?  I’m telling you, it’s because this wall treatment doesn’t fit the room’s personality!  Stop laughing at me.  I’m serious. 

So after spending about an hour ripping down the brown paper, it was on to Plan B.  And once again, I think Plan B will turn out to be a real winner.

I realized that I needed to do something to minimize all of the cultured marble–the tub, tub surround, and vanity countertops.  In order to do this, I decided to bring in some decorative tile, so I selected a 3″ x 6″ tumbled marble, and a 1/2″ mosaic tile that includes tumbled marble and glass in three different colors.  I’m going to use them as an accent around the tub.  Then in the vanity area, I will replace the existing 4″ cultured marble backsplash with the same tumbled marble/mosaic combo.

Here’s a little peek at a portion that I’ve worked on around the tub.

I do have a budget for this room, and the tumbled marble chair rail would have eaten right through that budget.  So instead, I opted for a wood trim. It’s a fraction of the price ($1.30 per linear foot for the wood trim, as opposed to over $6 per linear foot for tumbled marble chair rail), and once it’s painted, and the tile is grouted, I think it’ll be beautiful.  Oh, and take a look at how beautifully those tiles blend with the colors in the bedroom!  I love it!

For the main wall treatment, I’m using this sample of a fresco treatment that I saw at Sherwin Williams as my inspiration.

I think this wall treatment, with the more subtle colors and texture, will be a much better choice for this room.  And instead of buying Sherwin Williams $45/gallon wall texture, I purchased a 5-gallon bucket of pre-mixed joint compound (a.k.a. drywall mud) for $13 from Home Depot.  It works just fine.



Wall texture with drywall compound.  The texture shown in this picture is still wet.  After it’s dry, it will be primed, painted, and glazed.


So that’s the progress so far.  Hopefully there won’t be any more plan changes with this room.  I hope to see forward momentum right through to the finish line.  I want to finish relatively quickly, because the next room is the kitchen!!

Psstt…This bathroom is finished now!  Want to see the completed bathroom makeover?  Click here to see the whole before and after.