We're taking a bath!....okay, not literally. But this post is the first half to the wonderfulness that is our new hallway bathroom. This poor room has gone through many changes, and I think I have finally found the one it needs to stick to. First there was the red bathroom phase. I had dreamed of having a red bathroom since high school basically, not sure why. Maybe to stake my ground and show the world my bold self, or also because I saw it on TV once and fell in love with the idea. The room had about a year, and I got sick of it.

  Since I am so impatient, I forgot to get some great before shots. Pretend like this is the bathroom minus the whole green tape on the walls and no step-ladder. These are not my usual accessories to a room, promise.

 

  I am also notorious for browsing the mess-up paint aisles at any place that sells the stuff. You never know when someone else mess-up will be what you wanted! Well this was one of those glorious times, and it only costs me $5! The awesome color is called "splish-splash" by Color Place. It is sold at Wal-Mart, and I am so glad I dragged my hubs out so late at night to browse. The cashier made a comment of "what room are you going to paint with THAT color.....". He was pretty disgusted, but I was darn proud of it. Too bad he will never be a guest in my awesome guest bathroom. Missing out on something pretty cool I think.

  So first thing I needed to paint the bathroom our awesome aqua before anything else. It only took two hours, and I might add all by hand. The texture is all kinds of crazy, and roller just won't get the job done frankly.  I sectioned it off with the paint so it didn't feel like so much when I was actually doing the work.

I don't know why I thought a sideways photo was sufficient, but this is what I have.

  We were going for a adult and kid friendly bathroom, if there is such a thing. I wanted it to feel like a place that anyone can be in, including messy kids. But at the same time feel like a small oasis and very welcoming. I have had a dream to do bead board on these walls for almost a year now, but when it came down to budget and skills, I was no where close to it. So onto Pinterest I went, and found the lovely bead board wallpaper.

   I read through every review on the stuff, and found the brand with the highest reviews and best price too. It came down to the Allen + Roth Bead Board Wallpaper at Lowes, for only $20. How could I pass this stuff up? I found out it would only take one roll to do the whole bathroom, and I would have plenty left over for anything in the house I could find to put wallpaper on. It is textured exactly like the real thing, but water resistant too. Which was the number one reason I went for the wallpaper, it needed to stand up the the water splashing out of the tub by small children.

  We measured up the wall where we would want the wallpaper to hit. There would be a chair rail to cover the section where wall met paper as well. I measured every nook and cranny, and drew diagrams out to know exactly what pieces we had to cut out. I did cut one piece out backwards, but we had plenty left to re-do the whole thing.

If you look close you can see the little bubbles everywhere.

  A major problem we ran into though was the texture on our wall, we put up the wallpaper with out realizing just how much the texture would show through. Enter another trip to Lowe's here. Thankfully the paint department girls could get the jist of what I was trying to do, without having to do a whole ton of extra work. They recommended drywall sand paper and primer for textured wall paper. Thanks to the hubs he sanded down the bathroom walls and applied the primer for me all in just a few hours. The next day we were able to re-apply the paper no problem.

   This is what it looked like after all of the extra work, but it was well worth it. Also since we had to take down the wall paper and re-apply it we got some great wall-paper glue. It only costs about 5-6 dollars, but it is worth it. With any strips that were new we followed the directions on the wallpaper wrapper. It is very easy! I will update later this week on the second half of the process.

Mush smoother than before, still wet though.