A while back I decided that the kid’s bathroom needed a revamp. In its previous life it had builder beige walls and not a lot of character. I have been hard at work and am ready to show you the results. Because I am new to blogging I didn't take any before shots of the bathroom. That said, I do have in-between shots. I started out painting the ceiling and walls of the bathroom. I opted for Sherwin Williams "Extra White" on the ceiling. It is a stock color and it is what all the doors and trim in our house are painted. For the walls I chose Sherwin Williams "Misty". It is a light gray that reads blue in certain light. In this space it is a beautiful gray blue...just what I wanted.
I have been admiring several other bloggers and their lovely board and batten wall treatments. I knew I had to have one too. But, oh no...I have textured walls. What to do? The options that I found were 1. live with it 2. find a very thin board to cover the texture up and 3. do a skim coat. I definitely didn't want to live with it. Finding a thin board proved to be impossible in my small town. There is no big box home improvement store for miles. So that left doing a skim coat. I didn't even know what a skim coat was before tackling this project. Everything I read said it was time consuming, messy and labor intensive (you have to sand between coats). I also read that it was doable for a do-it-yourselfer like myself. So with a can of dry wall mud, a putty knife and a can-do attitude in my pocket I set to work to make those walls smooth. I won't do a full tutorial on skim coating here, there are better resources available...from experts. The basic process involves smearing a layer of drywall mud over the wall, smoothing it out with a trowel or sometimes a putty knife and letting it dry for 24 hours.
First up I needed to tear out the original tile backsplash to make way for the board and batten and mirror frame. I ended up needing to lower the mirror to accomodate for the mirror frame.
This is what the wall looked like after the first coat of drywall mud.
The next day I sanded down the whole surface to remove imperfections and make as smooth as possible.
I then started the steps all over again. Repeat. Repeat. Repeat. Do this until your arm feels like it will fall off, I mean until you are happy with the smoothness. Then you can prime, do the board and batten thing, and paint. Did I like skim coating? No. Would I do it over again? In a heartbeat. It makes the board and batten look great. I couldn't be happier with the results.
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