Redoing a Small Bathroom:

Our house is currently 15 years old and several of the rooms are outdated. The downstairs 1/2 bathroom has been on my list of projects for years. The old pedestal sink, gold light fixtures, and wallpaper all needed to go. The question was would I do the work or hire someone. I decided to split the project in half with a local handyman and take on what I could leaving him with the rest. We figured the entire project would take roughly 4 days - although the work itself was not an 8 hour a day thing. There were hours were we had to let paint dry or putty harden. One of the initial tasks was to remove the horrible wallpaper that was starting to peel off anyways. I'm sure I could have done the removal of the wallpaper faster, but I started in with a scraper (razorblade) and found that some sections were coming off totally cleanly. Then I ran into the zones where the glue had dried and the paper just tore leaving exposed a thin coating of paper and glue. After about 2 hours of getting off the biggest chunks I could, I went back over the glued areas by wiping them with a damp sponge and waiting a few seconds before removing the remnants with a putty knife. Once the glued paper was wet, it came off fairly easily.

Wallpaper removal is easy, but it can be tedious work as all of it needed to be removed in order to be able to texture the walls and then paint. We took out the toilet and sink so that I could get behind those areas to remove the last bits of wallpaper. In the process of removing the paper, I did make a few scratch marks on the drywall beneath and we had to fill in the holes or scrapes with putty. Once that had a chance to dry, my helper proceeded to sand down the walls with his drywall sander and prep them for the texturing. It takes time as you have to seal off the room as best as possible including the ceiling so that the texturing doesn't leave to much of a mess as you shoot it onto the walls. The setup time took about 1 hour - taping the floor and lower baseboards to protect them is time consuming. We also taped up the ceiling to protect the ceiling fan from getting destroyed. The actual time requirement to texture the walls was maybe 20 minutes. The bathroom is tiny and measures maybe 5 feet by 4 feet. After the walls were textured, we let them dry for 12 hours before doing anything else. In the meantime, we were able to setup the new sink onto the small vanity and secure it with caulking. Then we put the faucet into the holes on the sink and got the drain installed. All of this can be done without having to be in the bathroom. Once the texturing was dry, I was able to paint the room in about 2 hours time. Since we had all the drip paper taped to the floors and ceiling for the texturing, the painting went easy as there were no worries of dripping or getting it on areas that I didn't want. We let the paint dry overnight and then went in on the 4th day and started putting in the toilet, towel rod, toilet paper holder, light fixture, and then finally secured the sink to the wall with more sealant and caulking. You can see some of the photos from the project down below.

Supplies You Will Need - You will need the basics like a screwdriver (flathead and philips), a wrench, an exacto knife, a wallpaper removal tool, a drywall sander, some putty filler, compressor, plastic or paper used for protecting ceilings, baseboards, floors, etc., and a step ladder.

Cost to Update Small Bathroom:

The items are listed below and what they cost - I have included labor as a cost since I had to pay the handyman for his hours of work. The vanity and sink were bought from the Kohler website and the Kohler faucet was purchased at Home Depot. We got the mirror at an Aaron Brothers store and the towel rack and toilet paper holder were purchased at Home Depot as well. The light fixture was bought from Globe Lighting. The total cost (with labor) was close to $1600. I could have saved a bit on labor by doing more myself, but I wanted to make sure it got done properly. Also, you could easily save $$$ with buying less expensive fixtures.

* Small Vanity - $495
* Bathroom Sink - $250
* Vanity light fixture - $180
* Towel Rack - $25
* Toilet Paper Holder - $15
* Mirror - $50
* Kohler Faucet - $190
* Labor - $300
* Paint - $15

New sink with faucet.

Ceiling is taped over in preparation for the texturing of the walls.

Floors is covered with paper and taped down to keep it clean from texturing.

Bathroom wall after texture has been applied.

Painters caulk & gun.

Sealing off the room with plastic sheets before texturing walls.

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