Ma'am, Your Escutcheons Are Bent and Upside Down! I Beg Your Pardon

Dianna Wood
by Dianna Wood
$200
50 Hours
Medium
Making the most of a 520 Sq Foot Mobile Home - A Bathroom Renovation!
The Goal


- Tile Vanity Counter


- Paint over apricot back splashBefore


- Remove "Tilt-out" wooden Laundry Bins


- Build shelves in place of laundry bins for additional storage and access to everyday - "get ready for work" stuff


- Replace Bathroom Sink Faucet


- Replace Deflector Valve in Shower so the shower will work


- Turn around Bent bathrub faucet escutcheons


- Install baseboards


The Before shots....
Before #1
Before #2
Before #3 - Yuck!!!!!!!!!
It is amazing how you start out thinking you can knock something out in 10 or 12 hours and it turns into a 5 day project (12 hours each day) . The one real blessing was the huge storage closet in this bathroom. It had some pretty cool "tilt out" wooden hampers - But there was so much wasted space behind them that we decided to take them out and build shelves for baskets and a cubby hole for our wire laundry basket. The inside of the closet was still wood paneling and I wanted it clean- high gloss white. That took 3 coats of primer and 2 costs paints.


I came into the bathroom to find my crazy best friend, Deni, had crawled into the space to get a better "paint angle"
The original closet with the "Tilt out"s
My Crazy Friend - Pretty good for 67 yrs old!
Then came painting the Apricot back-splash. How long could that possibly take? Well, when you find that they painted over 50 year old high quality chrome trim - It can take you in an entirely different direction.
Can I paint over that?
I think not. So I decided to strip all the paint from the 50 year old chrome. JASCO to the rescue! Incredibly time consuming as each little screw head (that held the trim in place), was filled with paint. I had to pick it out with a razor blade. After the stripping, I decided to tile the whole darn thing with Lowe's new self adhesive glass tile. Did I already mention, I love the smell of grout? This was actually my first tile job. Not perfect, by any means; but, I had fun playing in the grout!
The bathroom faucet, when turned on, shot water all over the place. The original aerator was bent and the screen was missing. So, we replaced it with one that would fit in the area I had already tiled. Poor planning on my part. Moving on to the tub.shower enclosure and those bent "Escutcheons"
I had never even heard of that word before buying this house. What a cute word. Say it three times really fast....Escutcheons, Escutcheons, Escutcheons! Turns out that we had more problems than just bent Escutcheons. The diverter valve that stops the water from coming out of the faucet when you want to take a shower was shot. So, I had to learn how to replace the whole darn system.
Success! I admit, I needed my husbands muscles for this job-50 year old original hardware can be a bit challenging when they have fused themselves together with lime, calcium and rust. With a working shower, it was time to remove and replace the old grungy caulk. Well, I discovered that there was more under that old caulk than just mold and mildew. Yep, you guessed it; 50 year old gorgeous chrome trim.


5 hours of stripping paint off chrome trim, before I could re-caulk. On now to the "baseboards?" Someone had actually used "Tub and Wall Caulk stripping" as baseboards. So, I had to remove all that sticky adhesive,that was filled with dirt and grim, before installing new baseboards.
New baseboards
Still more work to do. Phew. A few "almost done" progress shots....
Shelves and Cubby Hole for Hamper
Wooden CD Rack used for those practical items
Can you believe, I have yet to clean the water spots, lime and calcium deposits off the glass shower doors. UUURRGGG
Dianna Wood
Want more details about this and other DIY projects? Check out my blog post!
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2 of 44 comments
  • Lori J Lori J on Apr 20, 2014
    Wow...you really got lots of mileage out of your investment. Congrats on a lovely makeover.
    • Dianna Wood Dianna Wood on Apr 20, 2014
      @Lori J I used everything I had for the decor - had to purchase the tile and the faucet replacements. The rest was blood, sweat, and tears and time. Lot's of time consuming labor. Thanks for popping in and for your kind words.
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