Room & Bead board

We have officially lost control of the house again.  We're catching up on laundry and dishes, but we have four happy cats and everyone is fed, so we must be doing something right.  You see, we haven't been home very much lately since we undertook a project at my mom and dad's house.

At some point, somewhere, Mom said she wanted bead board in her powder room. Since Mom is really hard to shop for, I made a mental note.  Randy and I have not put up bead board by ourselves, but Randy helped our buddy, Derrick, install the bead board in our powder room.  Still full of confidence from our Board and Batten project in our Family Room last summer, we figured we could put up the bead board for her for Mother's Day. Since Mom and Dad were out in Arizona for the spring, we could get the whole thing done as a surprise.

As we got closer and closer to Mother's Day, we had to kick it into gear to get the bathroom done before they got home.  This would explain the bead board sheets tied to the roof of Randy's car.  We had done several trips to Mom and Dad's house for measurements and devising our bead board strategy.  The walls in the powder room had two parallel lines going around where the walls had settled against what I'm guessing are studs, so we decided keeping the bead board about 5 feet high would cover that up nicely.

It was a beautiful, sunny day when we went to our local home improvement superstore to pick up a few supplies.

We tried to rent a truck from the store (I won't say which one), but their truck was being held as evidence in a drunk driving incident.  We would NOT recommend doing this, but we got it home with our arms out the window, holding the boards down, driving very slowly to prevent the wind from catching the boards.  It brought back fond memories of Jill, Orrie and Daryl helping me move in T's house.  It was about 12 years ago, with my mattress tied to the roof of Daryl's red Subaru, through the ghettos of Harrisburg.  Good times.

Luckily we don't have to take any major roads from the store to M&D's house, and we got the boards in the house just before it started to pour.

Here are some before pictures of the bathroom:

Yes, that is my preschool handiwork on the door.  It's been there for 30 years, you gotta problem wit' that?

In all fairness to Mom and Dad, I forgot to snap the "before" pictures before I created the absolute chaos you see below took down the shelf and all the pictures off the wall.  Notice how Mom painted around the shelf rather than remove the shelf and put it back up later.  I love you, Mom!!!!

I had also demo'ed the tile that was serving as a baseboard around the perimeter of the room with that mother of a screwdriver you see above, and a hammer.

Yeah, Mom and Dad didn't see this part.  They're probably cringing now.

We even have plans for this hole in the wall.  We got a door stop!

While we were back at the store to pick up something we forgot (isn't that how it always goes?) we got the crazy idea of repainting the bathroom too.  I was looking at a fresh coat of blue paint, but Randy and I couldn't agree on a blue.  I wanted a rich blue, he wanted a light blue.

So we went with Pantone's Macaw Green.  I know, crazy.  I jokingly pointed it out to Randy, and he actually liked it.  Just like that, the simple bead board project turned into a total bathroom overhaul.  The color seemed perfect for a couple of Parrotheads with a new pool in the back yard.  So without bringing home a paint chip and taping it to the wall like we usually do, we picked up a gallon of Macaw Green.

...and some Emerald for the door, for some variation in the color and some interest.  It's Pantone's color of the year, and they had samples available.  I just couldn't help myself, since a sample was all I needed...

To make the door this bright and beautiful!  I love the door, even with the blue paint still on the hinges. I think it gives it a casual elegance.

Then I did the first coat of the Macaw green on the walls.  I only painted from the top down to a little past the 5 foot mark.  I have to admit, I was nervous.

These walls are almost 34 years old, and even though Mom and Dad have been the only owners, these walls have been painted, wall papered, stripped and painted again and again.  So even though I had spackled and sanded and spackled and sanded, I had to do it once more.  Don't you love that spackle that goes on pink and turns white when it dries?  Then I had walls that looked like a kid with chicken pox, covered in calamine lotion.

After the pink turned to white, and I sanded them down, I did a second coat.  The walls started looking less like smashed peas, and more like lush jungle leaves.  Here you can see one of the horizontal lines that went around the room.  

I used paint with primer, but you could still see the spackled areas under the second coat.  So I had to a do a third coat.  If you had smoother walls, two coats would probably be just fine.

Anyone else do any special surprise home improvement projects for mother's day?  Re-do a room in someone's house when they were far away and couldn't stop you?  I think maybe I just wanted full reign to decorate the bathroom however we wanted!   It's a good thing they're my parents and have to love me, no matter what I do to their powder room...

More green goodness to come!