What’s a girl to do when a snow apocalypse is forecasted for North Carolina!? Stock up on paint supplies and be productive, of course! No reason to waste a perfect weekend when you’re stuck inside and can’t go anywhere…..I figured I might as well make some progress on the guest bathroom. So here’s the low down on all the painting going on following the installation of the tile I wrote about, here.
My original plan was to paint the vanity a dark gray, the walls a light linen gray, and then the ceiling white. The shower curtain is a navy blue print and I have navy and light blue towels. BUT I know gray is boring and my go-to color. I was challenged to take some risks, expand my horizons, and paint the vanity a fun color. So I decided (with some help) to paint the vanity navy. This isn’t a huge risk, but it’s something different (a little bit). I would be open to bigger risks if I wasn’t concerned about potential future buyers. My current place isn’t my forever home and I don’t want to have to do a lot of work when I decide to sell.
Fortunately I had some left over navy paint from the stripes I painted in the office, here. When I painted the stripes the I used Valspar’s Royal Navy, but it appeared black in the room and I had to add some white to the final coat of paint. I wasn’t 100% sure how it was going to look in the bathroom, so I didn’t add any white to start with. I really liked the hue of Royal Navy on the vanity. It doesn’t look black in real life. But it was tricky to photograph. I removed all of the hardware and primed the vanity with 2 coats of Kiltz Oil Based Primer. This stuff is super thick and stinky! But it does the job! I sanded after the final coat of primer with 400 grit paper to get out any brush strokes and have a smooth finish.
The paint is an eggshell finish, which is not ideal for a cabinet. I wanted to put some sort of sealer. I didn’t want to use a poly because even the satin finish poly is pretty shiny. I didn’t want a shiny high-gloss finish. I had an entire can of Annie Sloan clear wax, so I was going to use it instead. It provides a good seal, that will prevent scuff marks, without making the final finish shiny. But when I put the wax on, with the method I described in this post here all you could see was lint. I’ve never used the wax on a paint this dark. I used the most lint free towels I have for this, and they still left lint everywhere. So I ended up painting over it. For now, I’m going to see how the eggshell finish holds up. Ideally, if I wasn’t reusing paint from another project I would have gotten at least a satin finish. Oh well, not a big deal for now.
Next I painted the ceiling. My go-to white paint is Du Jour. I’ve used it for all of the ceilings in the house and anything else I’ve wanted to paint white. It will also be the color of the trim for the bathroom that I have to repaint (the trim will be in a semi-gloss finish vs. eggshell for the ceiling). I had half a gallon left over from the last ceiling I painted. It didn’t take that much to cover the ceiling in the bathroom. I painted the ceiling the day after a shoulder/arm intense crossfit workout…..my arms were pretty sore.
I was feeling pretty good about all the painting. I even narrowed down the wall paint color relatively quickly. I wanted a light linen gray for the walls. I was going for a clean look that didn’t make the room appear small. But still, I always get a test can of whatever color (or colors) I narrow it down to. Sometimes you never know until you get something on the wall how it’s going to look. I put a sample of the color on the wall. I had been so sure of it, but began to second guess myself once I saw it on the walls. It looked way to light….almost white. I thought, is there enough gray in this color so that when the entire room is covered it’s not going to look too white? I decided to get a test can of another gray that was a shade darker. When I painted a square of it on the wall, I immediately knew it was all wrong. It was too blue and too dark. Why the hell had I second guessed myself!? My gut is usually right, but I guess sometimes it’s hard to tell that what you’ve got is exactly what you’re looking for when you don’t have something to compare it to. So it’s appropriate for this icy/snowy/winter weather apocalypse that I painted the bathroom Olympic’s Thin Ice.
The guest bathroom is coming together! It’s been a fun project so far and I’ve really enjoyed the process (for once). There’s still some stuff left to do, but it’ll be completely done in no time!
Guest Bathroom Update To-Do List:
Tile Floor
Paint Vanity
Paint Ceiling
Paint Walls
Add two towel bars
Add one hook
Reinstall Toilet Paper Holder
Find new mirror
Shelf/Décor for above the toilet
Soap Dispenser
Shower curtain
Put the door back in place
