Half Bath DIY Makeover

Taking our 1964 Half Bathroom from Moldy, Dated, and Drab to Modern and Polished

When we first purchased out 1964 fixer upper in 2021 I was pleasantly suprised that the house even had a half bathroom. Not the most common feature for homes at the time it was built and it is such a nice feature to have especially when hosting guests (we also have an attached bathroom to the primary suite which is probably even less common for the time but another huge advantage). Despite being very pleasantly surprised by the presence of the unexpected half bath in it’s original state it was less than impressive in the looks department. In short it was pretty dang ugly.

The original vinyl flooring was awful, originally a yellow hue it was even more yellowed due to age, the wallpaper had pink textile/vertical stripes vibes, the vanity top was a formica style, and the fixtures were very dated. Not to mention that the only outlet in the bathroom was part of the light fixture (which was also ugly), and lots of original tile elements on the walls in a sand color.

I’ll post a few before shots here:

Prior to moving in we had some work done in here. We replaced the flooring throughout almost the entire house so new flooring was put down in the bathroom, and our contractor replaced the toilet with a new one, and changed out the vanity top with a marbled stone top and switched the faucet fixture out as well. Shortly after moving in my husband painted the vanity a light blue color, the same color as our lower cabinets in the kitchen and filled in the curved detailing on the doors and drawer, and there she sat for a while.

Easy Wallpaper Change Out Gone Wrong

While chatting one night my husband and I began brainstorming some additional ideas for further updating that we could do in here. I mentioned trying to repair some seams in the wallpaper where there was gaping while my husband opted to remove it altogether as he had never liked it. I mentioned that I had some wallpaper in a floral print I had purchased for another project but then proceeded in a different direction that would be pretty in the room. As soon as that idea was planted it quickly took root and my husband impulsively began ripping down the wallpaper…that’s where the problems began.

Enter in…mold.

Almost as soon as the first strip of old wallpaper came down it was obvious that there had been a pretty serious mold issue in this bathroom. The original wallpaper was the traditional kind where you would apply water to the back of the wallpaper to activate the adhesive in the glue layer, you would then hang the paper on the wall. What I suspect happened is that too much water was applied to the backing and created a rich enviornment for mold growth. I think that as there are no other signs of water damage or leaking and as the wallpaper was being removed it split and only the top-most layer came down and the glue layer of the wallpaper was adhered to the drywall and contained the mold. Finding this was a bit shocking to say the least. My original plan for removal was to set up a negative pressure environment with fans in the window, and then treat the mold with a Mold Armor spray, the mold didn’t appear to be active but I felt safer treating it. After that was complete I would use wallpaper adhesive remover and a scraper to scrape off the remaining wallpaper glue than do any drywall repair that was needed and prime the walls with a mold preventative primer to ensure that the mold wouldn’t return!

As it would turn out I didn’t end up completing any of this original plan as shortly before getting started with this my husband thought that he saw asbestos in the parts of the drywall that weren’t covered in mold and we decided to do testing…sure enough we welcomed asbestos in the drywall to this party of a bathroom reno! Specifically the asbestos was present in the joint compound in the drywall but it obviously all had to be removed professionally. Work stalled on this project until asbestos remediation could be completed and then we had new drywall installed which provided us with a nice clean slate, but phew what an unexpected project this bathroom reno had become!!!

During the drywall install we decided to change up a few features in the bathroom, my husband added in a new electrical outlet that was seperate from the light fixture and replaced the old light switch, plus we opted not to keep the opening for the medicine cabinet and decided to use a regular mirror instead and we also purchased a new toilet paper holder and towel ring to replace the tile ones that had been there.

Design Inspiration and Plan

By the time we finally reached this milestone of actualy having walls again about 6 months had passed since my husband impulsively removed the old wallpaper, during the 6 month time period I had come up with a totally new plan for the final look of this bathroom! I decided to expand the scope of work that we were originally planning to include new wallpaper but only on the top half of the walls right where the tile ended, and I wanted to add a custom chair railing detail around the whole room and then picture box molding on the two walls without tile so under the window and the wall facing the door. I’ll post an inspiration picture below.

As I mentioned earlier I had some floral print wallpaper on hand that I was planning to use in a different room makeover project but didn’t end up using that I thought would be perfect in this bathroom so I got to work!

DIY Renovations Finally Begin

The very first thing that I did in this bathroom was prime all of the surfaces including the ceiling (this had not been removed during the remediation process). After priming I painted the ceiling in a flat white ceiling paint-I do not have any pictures of this process as there was actually no functional lighting in this room while I was doing this it was pretty hilarious working on this with shop lighting set up as often the only window of time available for me to work on this was early in the morning and after bedtime!! After priming and ceiling painting was complete it was time to get started on the wallpaper install!

Wallpaper Installation

I used a floral print wallpaper with a dark/moody theme that I think works really well in this bathroom, despite it being a small space it gets a lot of sunlight so the room doesn’t feel dark! I love a peel and stick wallpaper and have used a lot of wallpaper accents so far in decorating our home, I like that it adds a nice accent but can be switched out relatively easily so is very renter friendly! This wallpaper did give me a run for my money as the pattern was a bit tricky to line up correctly and a few of the rolls arrived loaded upside down, but I highly recommend this one and think the quality for the price simply can’t be beat!! The other issue I ran into is there were some small gaps between seams in a few areas, I wasn’t using a level during my install which if I had I likely would have avoided this issue as the wallpaper was correctly aligned at the top and then slowly drifted to form these few small gaps. I opted to remedy this by purchasing a color match paint from Sherwin Williams in the color naval and filled in these spaces with the paint so they would blend better. After the wallpaper install was completed above the sink my husband finally installed the new light fixture-let there be light, making the remainder of the reno process much easier!! He also installed the chair railing trim immediately after he installed the light!

Another Pivot-Re-painting the Vanity

After the wallpaper install was complete I realized that I was not loving the color of the vanity anymore. I felt as if the light blue on the vanity was competeing with the dark blue navy color in the wallpaper, plus I had leftover naval paint from blending the gaps in between the seams so I decided to repaint the vanity in the naval color. The naval paint was not a cabinet enamel paint so after painting I did apply a few coats of a semi-gloss top coat.

I breifly debated on this as it was an extra step that wasn’t 100% necessary but I am SO glad I opted to do this as I think it really made a big impact on completing the room and avoids color clashing.

Picture Box Molding Trim Install

It was time to move on to the picture box molding install. I will be the first to admit I am much better at “winging it” and often neglect to really plan, or rather I plan “in my head,” but this is an example where you simply have to actually plan this out ahead of time as there are measurements involved and it will be all over the place and you’ll end up with uneven boxes if you neglect this step! I searched through a lot of tutorials on how to get the measurements, but in short you want to ensure that you have the same distance between your boxes and any existing trim and the wall edges. For instance if you want to have 3.5′ as your distance between your boxes and the wall edges/trim you would measure the width of the wall subtract 3.5′ two times from your wall width and then divide this by the number of boxes you want create-this would tell you how wide your boxes should be. For the height of your boxes you will measure the height of your wall space, subtract 3.5′ twice and then you have your height of your boxes! If my shortened explanation doesn’t answer all of your measurement questions be sure to check out the tutorial I linked she has a very detailed step-by-step explanation!

After the picture box molding was installed it was time to fill in the nail holes, and add caulking to the seams to give this detailing a more polished/finished look. Definitely don’t skip this step, although a drag and time consuming makes a big difference in the finish of your project! It can really set the difference from appearing very DIY to looking more polished and professional!!

Painting, Painting, and More Painting of the Trim

After allowing for dry time for the wood filler and caulking I sanded the areas on the trim where I had applied wood filler for a smoother finish and then got to work painting the trim. I used Behr’s cabinet, trim and door paint in the ultra white color for this trim. This is my favorite trim and cabinet paint, it’s a bit pricey but worth it for your cabinet and or trim painting projects!! I ended up applying four coats of paint to the trim work with a light 400 grit sanding in between coats. While I was painting the picture box molding it quickly became obvious that the rest of the trim in the bathroom needed a fresh coat of paint as well. After the paint on the picture box molding was complete I started working on painting the door, the door and window trim as well as the wooden trim that is in between the glass panes on our windows. We still have the original windows in our house that have the wooden trim between the glass panes, we are planning on having these all replaced but it is a long-term project given how much window replacement costs! So in the meantime as I’m working on various room makeovers I’m painting the trim in between the window panes to update the exisisting windows and give them a clean and more modern look.

All of this finishing paint took quite a while and apparently my velcro dog was missing me and decided to come join and traipse through wet paint!! Gotta love our “helpers!!”

One Last Stumbling Block

After painting was complete it was time to move on to finishing touches to round out this reno, but it simply would not be this DIY half bath reno without another complication arising! My husband was hanging up the new towel ring and toilet paper holder, after doing this he started taking down the old towel rod which unfortunately left a noticeable imperfection in the tile, we suspected that the tile towel rod holders had been placed directly on top of the wall tile but that was unfortunately not the case, instead a portion of the wall tile had been cut out and removed to hang the towel rod, so we were left with an issue.

I did some research on fixing damaged tile and the easiest fix I found was to seal the tile with epoxy and then paint it to blend. I took some of the tile to Sherwin Williams to find the best color match (Sensational Sand) and then got to work. I applied three coats of the eopxy followed by three coats of Sepaint and it really did blend in nicely, I am pleased with this fix! After this tile fix the DIY bathroom reno was complete!! After months of hardwork I am so happy to have this project done and am in love with the final results!!

Quick Reminder of our Before

Here is the After

Final Thoughts/Key Take Aways

Don’t let DIY set backs discourage you. It is really common to run into issues along the way in your DIY journey, take a moment to pause and regroup and formulate a new plan, you may end up liking your new plan better at the end of the day!
It’s okay to redo an original design plan or even redo part of your project that you’ve already done (like repainting your vanity when it no longer fits into the design plan). At the end of the day you want to be happy and satisfied with your project so take the extra step to make it work the best for you!
You can preserve the original character of a room by leaving one original design element and working around it, adding new features that compliment it. In this instance we kept the original tile, I actually like the color and like that I was able to keep it as part of the design!