Bathroom update

We've long wanted to do some updating to the bathroom (read: scrap and start new). But we don't want to spend our money on that right now. So, I've been thinking about painting and over these last few weeks decided to go for it. A fresh coat of paint, new shower curtain, new window treatments should dress it up enough to make it look a little more updated, right?


Yeah. In theory. Try 3 coats of paint and 3 window treatments later. The only thing that actually worked right the first time was the shower curtain. And that just hangs there!

So I picked out two colors of paint because they matched the shower curtain. It's kind of an off-red and a mustardy yellow (you can see a little sliver of that on the left by the door. That color goes around the top of the shower). They were kind of fall, earthy colors that I liked together. It was specifically bathroom paint because we have some issues with humidity and venting in that room. The previous paint got round mildew spots on it every now and again. So I wanted to make sure we got some top-quality paint for this project.

First, I primed it. So far, so good. Next, the first coat. Doing fine; this is still the first day. Feeling pretty good. That feeling ended real quick when we did the first coat of red. We ended up with a second coat of each. No biggie; a lot of paint jobs need two coats. A little bummed because I want to see the end result, but still hanging in there. By this point, we've had to let each coat dry for a while. My enthusiasm toward this project is thinning. Who the hell thought of painting the @#@!$# bathroom?!?!?! I'm tired of this. I want my bathroom back and I want the walls to stop being sticky. We put coat 3 on. Looks better....nice, even. I give it another day to dry.

Day 4, 5,6 -- who knows anymore. We decide to put up the shower curtain and put the cabinet doors back on. Shower curtain, check. Doors....BLEEP!!! Eric lined up the hinges with the old holes and wouldn't you know it, they aren't seated right. The bottom pair doesn't fit the same way (despite using the same holes!) and they ripped huge chunks of paint off when we closed and opened them. ARGHH!H! Forget it, that's another project for another day.

It's now time to take the painter's tape off the ceiling and corners. Yeah. This paint is so good that it's like one giant piece of rubber. I pull off a corner and it catches the paint and peels it off the wall about an inch. I'm steaming now. So (calmly) get an box cutter and have to score the wall as I'm peeling off the tape. Twice the effort, half the happiness.

That's finally done. Wow, it kind of looks nice. Sure, there are a few spots that are messy...and cat hair embedded into one wall (by the window Bingo jumped into while it was still wet. I walked by mid-jump and screamed at him. Well, that startled him and one leg dropped below the window sill and made a cat-size smear. I would have been furious if it wasn't so hilarious giving him a little bath after that).

Ok. Fine. Are you still with me? Feeling the frustration? The final straw came when we put up the roman shades I purchased. I thought Roman shades would look cool in here; kind of completing that "earthy" look. Whatever. The damn things were semi-private! But of course Kathy missed that detail in the store. We drill 8 holes into our wall, install the shades, and then realize that at night you can see right through them. I go back to the store and purchase another one that does not say anything about being fully or semi-private. They are see-through, too! I can't even see straight I'm so fed- up with this thing. The worst part is that we threw away all the stuff for the first set of shades. But I was so damn determined to get my money back that I went dumpster diving and found the packaging. I literally taped the instructions back together (I have a bad habit of ripping paper before it goes in the garbage). I painstakingly packed it all up and returned both. Thank goodness that worked. The next best thing we found was this green pair. I really don't give a rat's ass what's in my bathroom anymore. I kind of miss the plain old white.