The Most Beautiful Bathroom in the World
I am definitely through painting things for awhile. Once upon a time I loved to paint. Not so much anymore.

This life-draining project is finally over. Not that anything went smoothly about it. Plus it succeeded in ruining what was supposed to be a very relaxing three-day weekend for me. Clearly the bathroom has been angry with me from the beginning for attempting to paint it. But I finally won.

I don't want to say everything that could have gone wrong with this bathroom has gone wrong. I mean, I guess it could have literally exploded and that would have been worse. Or maybe better, because at that point I could have started over with a brand new wall. But aside from mass destruction, most of what could go wrong with the painting of this bathroom, did.

After going through the hell of the first part of the bathroom saga, I began my weekend thinking I was on the home stretch, nearing the end, seeing the light at the end of the tunnel, crossing the finish line, and whatever other lame 'completion' metaphor you can think of. I really, truly thought I would finish the last coat of paint on Friday night or Saturday, then clean the bathroom and put it back together, having at least a day and a half left of my glorious holiday weekend to do absolutely nothing.

Yeah, right.

Friday night I painted the first coat of blue paint. I let it dry overnight. So far, so good.

There was one tiny issue that the Home Depot guy didn't warn me about when he recommended a better roller brush. The brush tended to shed brush fuzzies all over the wall. At first I was annoyed, but the volume of fuzzies was obviously too great for me to go along and pick them out of the paint. So I decided it added a funky texture to my non-textured wall, and I rolled on.

Then I noticed that the edge of where I'd used a brush to paint the edges did not match the texture of where it met the roller-brushed paint. Hmmm. Another issue Home Depot did not warn me about. I thought about what to do, and decided to go buy a small roller brush to do the edges of the next coat, so that when I brush with the large roller brush, it will all brush together nicely with the same texture. I was so smart. And Home Depot didn't even have to figure that one out for me.

I had made a pledge not to go to Home Depot this weekend, but I had to get this smaller roller brush. So Saturday morning I went to Lowes instead. Ha! I will not go to Home Depot this weekend.

Saturday afternoon I was set to paint the second coat of paint. Now, I had used a flat paint on recommendation from the Home Depot guy. He said the flat paint would do better for the first coat, then I could finish with a satin or semi-gloss or something else for the second coat. I still had plenty of this flat paint left to do the second coat, and I was really wanting to not spend anymore money on another can of paint with a different finish. The flat paint actually hid the imperfections in the bubbly wallpaper better than the shiney stuff, so I was cool with the flat paint. But I knew deep down inside somewhere that it wouldn't be good enough. Bathrooms require at least a satin finish, for when the paint gets wet. But I thought for sure I could get around that and save myself a few bucks. Sure! It'll be fine! I was still determined to not go back to Home Depot this weekend. On with the second coat of flat paint.

The second coat went much faster, and as I neared the end of the task I began singing an "I'm almost finished!" song. It wasn't a good song, or even a song that made sense or had a tune of any sort. I was just very excited to be nearing the end of this bear of a bathroom painting job that started a week and a half ago. Plus I think I was a wee bit delirious from all the paint fumes after a week and a half of painting in a very small space.

I stood back to admire my work. It was beautiful. I just may have the most beautiful bathroom in the world.

Then I began pulling down the painting tape I had put up everywhere to keep blue paint off of the edges of stuff that I did not want to be blue. This is when the end of my project took a flying leap in another direction and was once again way out of reach.

As I pulled the tape, two things happened. One, I noticed that the tape did not actually keep the paint away from where it wasn't supposed to go. Instead of nice smooth lines and edges, I had millions of blobs of blue paint on my white door frames, cabinets, and ceiling, where it had either seeped through or made its way around the tape. My anger began to rise. What good was the painting tape for edges if it's not going to actually keep the paint off of my edges? I'd spent quite a bit of time carefully taping every exposed edge, since the dark blue paint was hard to clean off of all the white stuff. Now not only had that been a waste of time, I would now have to go back and try to clean up the paint that ran amok onto things where it did not belong. I might as well have just freehanded it like I started, and painted much slower and very carefully. The painting tape was useless.

But, not only did it not keep the paint away from where the paint did not need to go, as I pulled it away from the wall it now proceeded to pull the dried paint away from the wall. Wherever paint met tape, and therefore stuck to tape, both tape and paint now came away from the wall, exposing the flowery wallpaper undereath. So, my attempt to have nice, straight edges was now completely ruined. And even though I'd thought I was through painting, I now had to go back and paint the edges again.

I was furious. And proceeded to scream a few choice words about it to my bathroom. Good thing I hadn't opened the window in there this time. I was able to spare the old lady next door from hearing my cursing of my bathroom.

At some point during the tantrum I was throwing in the bathroom, I apparently touched the dried paint on the wall. This is when I discovered the reason for a satin finish paint. Every touch to the wall leaves a nice fingerprint or smear on the flat paint. So since I had to repaint the edges anyway, I had to painfully admit that I was going to have to return to Home Depot and buy another can of paint, satin finish. DANGIT!!!!!!!!!

I called it quits for the day, since it was now late into my Saturday evening. Sunday I woke up, went to Home Depot, and asked another paint guy what would be the best finish for a bathroom that isn't too shiney, but will be good for if it gets wet, or touched or whatever. He said satin, I said great. Load me up with a can.

Then he asked my why I'd used a flat paint in the first place. I wanted to hit him. I started to give him the short version of the story, but then said it was a long story and that the last guy I talked to here said to use the flat paint after the primer wasn't working right for me. He looked at me with an odd expression and said I could have done it without the flat paint and just a primer. I sincerely did not want to hear that at this point, and he could tell because he stopped talking and finished mixing my paint, assuring me that this would get the job done for me. Maybe I looked like I was about to cry. I sincerely hoped this satin paint would finish the job for me. Preferably by just sitting the can of paint in the bathroom and willing it to get on the walls in all of the right places.

I returned home and began to paint, trying to fix the tape destruction as I went along. It went pretty fast, as I now know every nook and cranny of wall space in that bathroom. I probably could have painted it with my eyes closed. And it would probably look better than what I'd done so far with my eyes wide open. Hmmm. If I painted it with my eyes closed, when people ask why it looks so bad I could say I painted it with my eyes closed. As an art experiment. And then it would be cool . . . .

Paint fumes were getting to me. Wake up!

I finished the painting, and walked away for the night to let it dry. And to repent and ask forgiveness for all the cursing I'd done in that bathroom over the past week and a half. I didn't want to hate the bathroom, but it was turning me into a bitter person, more bitter by every minute that I continued to be trapped in there. I have to live with this bathroom for a very long time. I needed to make peace with it.

My holiday Monday morning came, and while I had planned to do a lot of nothing in honor of Labor Day, a day in which it is illegal to do work, I had to finish the bathroom job. I had no choice. Today I had to clean the paint mistakes, then get the bathroom back together. And not go in there again for a very, very long time.

I resorted to my trusty, toxic can of Goof Off. If you've never used this stuff, it's great for getting up paint drips, adhesives, etc. from a variety of surfaces. It is also the most toxic, fumey substance in the world. I'd inadvertently decided long ago that I wanted to use as many toxic chemicals on this bathroom project as possible, what with the primer and drywall mud dust and all. I was going for severe lung damage in the shortest amount of time possible. I figured I was going to die in this bathroom as a result of and during the course of this project, sooner rather than later, so I might as well make it as chemically unbearable as possible. I added Goof Off to the list and got busy with it. An excellent choice to achieve my goal.

I spent several hours in the bathroom with Goof Off and the resulting fumes. It's good stuff, but it's a pain to work with. Plus, if you work with it too long in one area it eats off everything in that spot. And I mean everything. I couldn't erase all of the mistakes, but I got most of them looking a lot better. I'm pretty picky about straight edges and whatnot, so to most people the mistakes probably won't be noticeable. But having been through the pain of every detail of this bathroom, every drip or non-straight edge stood out to me like a blinking, neon arrow, drawing my eye directly to it.

Once my lungs could take no more toxic fumes, I called it quits. At this point I had the World's Most Flammable Bathroom, so I then cleaned the bathroom from top to bottom with Mr. Clean and water, to wash away the toxic-ness of everything I'd used.

I put up my shower curtain, brought in my rugs and towels and candles. I put everything in place, then stepped outside of the bathroom. I turned around to look at the completed project, and . . .

It's okay.

I mean, I like it. It's definitely better than the flowery wallpaper that was on display before I started the overhaul. It's a bit darker in color than I originally pictured, but it works. With some lighter things on the wall as I find them, it will break up the blueness and be quite nice in there, actually.

I think I'm still a bit fumed-out and ticked off at the whole thing to be fully in love with the bathroom.

Four coats of primer, two layers of drywall mud, three coats of paint, 108 hours of work, and some other miscellaneous steps later, the bathroom is complete.

The bathroom tried to break me. But I won.

C.T.