#cottage renovation...bathroom update with lots and lots of white paint

Seriously!  This is what the bathroom at the cottage looked like when we bought it.  Pretty original and not in a good way!  Infact this photo makes it look like the colours were kind of vintage charming, when really they were just dirty, and don't get me started on the vanity.  

I would love to have gutted and started again, but we are saving our pennies for other projects.  Something had to be done though.  After reading lots of online reports we decided to paint everything white.  The blue walls are plaster so we could use acrylic, but the pink bits are plastic (yes plastic!).  Plastic needs special paint and we went with White Knight Laminate Paint & Primer.  Now I should say that all the hard work was done by Mr B, and he reports back it was hard work.  Not difficult but a lot of effort.  

First you have to clean and sand the surfaces really really well.  This takes 90% of whole time of the job, but if you don't do it well the product won't work well.  If you aren't prepared to do a whole lot of sanding this product is not for you.  Once the surfaces are prepared, cleaned and dried, paint on the White Knight Tile & Laminate Primer.  Once the primer is dry paint with White Knight Laminate Paint.

Safety note!!!  The paint has really strong fumes, extremely strong, so do not start without first buying a good quality mask and goggles that you can wear comfortably while you are painting.  Mr B said he could only be in the room for about half an hour at a time before the fumes really started to get to him.  Even with the windows wide open he had to outside for lots of breaks.  This little room took two whole days to do, and a lot of effort.  But for around $250 you have to admit the results are pretty good (the photos are not the best I know it really is a tiny space and hard to photograph).

With a lot of elbow grease and a lot of white paint it's gone from very very yucky to fresh and bright and spotlessly clean.  We could not salvage the vanity, it was truly horrid, so we bought the Hemnes/Rattviek from Ikea.  It fits in well with the country style, has a generous sink and lots of storage.  So much better and good value too!

There is still a little way to go, that is why I called it "better" rather than "after".  We were going to paint the tub but now I rather like the sky blue, it may stay, what do you think?  I would love to paint the floor in a blue, white and grey pattern, maybe an encaustic style pattern.  The trim still needs painting too.  But it is clean and whole lot better that what we started with.