Painting stripes in the toilet:) You can too!:)

You might like to have a look at my before toilet in the last post... ew. At one stage when we first moved in I preferred public toilets to my own... that is pretty bad right??

In an effort to remedy this earlier this winter I did one layer of the Antique White USA from Dulux in the toilet. I also did two layers of ceiling white. I then ran out of paint..

Of course it was a little boring... and I see so many nice blogs and images online with more exciting paint jobs... So I decided on stripes. But subtle stripes. It is a rental after all!

At this point I had already removed the less attractive gloss royal blue plastic toilet roll holder... just didn't think it would go with my super awesome paint look.

 I also remembered the important things like - putty up the toilet roll holder holes before embarking on the epic paint spree.


I then did the second coat of the Antique White all over the walls - except the wet putty and left it over night to really dry well.

 In the morning I started taping and fixed up the toilet roll holder putty:) This was so the Antique White could dry properly before I put tape on it! I started taping with a level and a metre long ruler, but I found that the ruler alone was enough:) Also I started on a mini wall section that seemed less daunting than the longer wall section. I measured at both the beginnings, ends and at many points in between to get the tape straight.

I measured two rows at a time for speed and accuracy... My wall took 5 taped lines - 4 Antique white and 3 contrast.

 I wanted a super subtle effect - very non-offensive but still nice and interesting. I also wanted to reflect the beachy kind of simple aesthetic - we are in a 40 year old beach holiday house so gotta go with that... nothing super fancy!

My original ideas were either and gloss and matte paint contrast or two shades in the original Antique White USA that is all over the house.
But then why introduce new colours? And then I got to why introduce a new can of paint? So I ended up using ceiling white stripes.. I have excess ceiling white why not use it? And with my ceiling white it seems to be not fully opaque so it was perfect, especially with the future gloss white frame work.

I started at the bottom with a ceiling white line because I didn't want the ceiling white stripe touching the ceiling white roof... I used a roller, an edger and a brush to make sure I got into all the corners. I also kept a wet cloth handy to clean up any accidents over the tape lines.

I left the first coat to dry and then went over it with a second coat which fixed up most missed bits. There are still a few but we can go back and fix those up later!

I remember reading somewhere that after using the tape you should pull it off the wall before the paint dries? So I did that after the second coat.

I then gave all the trims a double coat in a gloss white to finish off:)







I left attaching the toilet roll holder until the next day because I  wanted to give the ceiling white paint enough time to dry properly. It was a little IKEA holder (Lillholmen range $9.99), I needed a stainless steel look and a hangy one so no one gets stabbed by the toilet roll holder while at the toilet!
So excitedly my whole toilet renovation cost a grand total of about $14! Tape and the holder! Everything else I already had:)  The whole process took about 4 hours of actual work but happened over 48 hours to get the drying time in for a better finish:)

 

What do you think? Have you done any bargain renovations lately?

The new kitchen! Wellll almost...

My first before and during pics from our ghetto! Its not finished but close enough to give you a sneak peek:) here we go....

These pics show the kitchen as we walked in after the tenant of 7 years left! It needed a mega clean! Cigarette smoke stained ceiling, ingrained mould, lovely peely lino tiles and stiff with grease and oil curtains! Of course a lot of this went that night with some hard cleaning and curtain removal...

More recently the lino tiles were pulled up and replaced with some neutral bunnings tiles installed by lovely sister in law and instructional father in law! She now has a new skill... she doesn't know yet but she is going to teach me how to tile the laundry and toilet... hi Luey! Wanna play tiles??:) hehe Might be another pizza in it? hehe


The cabinets were also removed and yesterday we installed these new ones from the lagan IKEA range. Super bargain at half the cost of their more advertised Faktum range. Since we were going for white anyways to maximise the amount of light in a fairly dark room.... They were pretty easy to install, except when we hit the 60 year old hardwood frame... Can you see our makeshift loungeroom kitchen in the background? Convenient right?


Then this is tonight! Currently no handles... that is a job for tomorrow! And no bench tops.. that is a job for the professionals! Luckily we got them from the same IKEA range for a mega bargain.
The tiles will be padded out with similar tiles in the missing spaces and then all painted to match up. I also need to do a bit of a touch up on the paint job to fix up all the bits that are now uncovered and bright yellow...

But even though it is unfinished we are still super excited to put all our stuff in the clean, fresh cupboards and have a oven that doesn't turn off mid-cooking!

All up this renovation has cost us approximately $1500 and a large amount of hardwork! Yay for bargain renovations to fix up the rental! YAY!