Michael Holigan: How would you like to give your bathroom a complete makeover without spending a lot of money? Artist Stacy Robinson shows us five creative steps to transform a boring bathroom into one loaded with style and personality.
Stacy Robinson: This bathroom is pastel in color and is a bit dated. So, what we want to do is give it a more updated feel, a more sophisticated look. We started this project by choosing this really great fabric and from there we chose the wall color and the ceiling color. The ceiling color is a caramel color. Because the ceiling height is rather tall we could have this deeper shade on the ceiling without bringing it down and closing the room in.
MH: Stacy then begins to apply a wall treatment created with tissue paper. She adheres it to the existing wallpaper.
SR: And what the tissue does is give a very delicate texture to the wall. I'm going to go right over the wallpaper as it is and paint a layer of paint, a latex enamel, usually in a satin finish. Then I'm going to crinkle up wrapping tissue, the kind that you buy at the grocery store. The adhesive for the tissue is actually the paint. We're going to apply the paint onto the wallpaper, slide the tissue onto the wet paint and then another coat of paint on top of that.
MH: For this treatment Stacy uses one layer of paper. If you want to build up more texture just use more layers.
SR: So that we won't have the seams showing and the straight edges you can either tear the end of the paper off or you can add another patch of paper on top of the seams and they'll disappear. You have to work pretty fast. You don't want to touch the tissue very much because it's very delicate.
MH: After all the tissue has been applied and the paint has dried, Stacy begins to add a glaze of color.
SR: The glaze is a mix of one part water, one part glazing liquid and one part paint. These can be adjusted a bit. I usually put a little bit more water into this mix. The glaze is applied with a brush or a roller and you need to work fairly quickly. You don't want the glaze to dry or you can have some problems with a dry edge.
MH: After the glaze has been applied Stacy removes some of it with a dry rag. This leaves part of the glaze remaining in the cracks and crevices of the tissue paper.
SR: A lot of times people ignore the bathroom cabinet. A lot of times it's either painted white or it's plain wood color. And by painting the cabinet and adding some really great hardware you can have almost like a piece of furniture. So we chose to paint the cabinet a gloss black. A lot of times you see these brass light fixtures and there's nothing really all that great about them. We wanted a more rustic feel. So, we spray painted it black in matte finish and then mixed up some real neutral tones, rust and brown, little bit of black, and dabbed it on, cleaned it up with something that looks like it has an aged patina on it.
MH: After Stacy finishes with the light fixture, she moves on to the bathroom mirror where she has some interesting plans for some woodwork.
SR: We've taken this molding and we're going to give it an aged look, and I'm going to put a gold leaf finish on it. This is done by applying black and red spray paint to the bare wood.
MH: Stacy then applies an adhesive to the molding called gold sizing. It's a waterbased product that she applies with a sponge brush. It will take about an hour to dry. After it becomes tacky to the touch, it's time to apply the gold leaf to the molding.
SR: It's okay if there are parts that tear. It's very delicate and because this molding is fluted it's difficult to get down into the grooves. The gold leaf has a tendency to be brassy on its own and so we want to knock it down and give it a patina, and to do this we use an artist oil paint and a little bit of mineral spirits.
MH: Stacy mixes the mineral spirits and paint in a shallow pan and then brushes it on the molding. She then uses a rag to wipe the paint off before it's had time to dry. This effect gives an aged look to the molding.
SR: We're using Liquid Nails adhesive to apply the molding onto the mirror.
MH: For the piece at the top, Stacy uses hot glue to hold the molding in place while the Liquid Nails dry.
SR: The shower curtain really turned out great, and I think it's the one thing that really pulls the whole room together. We're going to pull it back to one side because we want to balance the room and so by pulling the curtains to the right it gives the room balance. We're going to use a tieback cord and this was real inexpensive. It was $3.00 and I put a little corkscrew turn in it to give it a little more interest. Now we're going to accessorize the bathroom. Originally this frame was pink and we basically did the same thing we did with the mirror frame, gold leafed the existing frame. So we saved a lot of money there. We found this really great cabinet to display items that are special to the homeowner. We found this really great glass and iron ball and we turned it on its side and put the hand towel in it and had these really great balls with seeds spilling out of it.
MH: A photograph of the homeowner's grandparents placed on the easel adds the final touch to this bathroom makeover.
SR: All of it has kind of an Old World Charm. It's really great to stand back and see the transformation of this bathroom. We've come a long way and I think it's really great. With a little bit of imagination and not a lot of money I think we've got something that's really exciting.
Episode 54 1997 - 98 Season
| Bathroom Makeover | Hail Damage | Glass Blocks | Refinance |