Day 17-19: Painting the bathroom

I was getting quite sick of the bathroom being in disarray so once the stinky sealant was dry I went and got two litres of bathroom paint in our chosen colour: Resene Scandal.  It is a very vivid aqua - more blue than green.

Right away we experienced problems with the paint.  It seemed very thick, even with a lot of stirring.  It still had the air bubbles from being in the paint mixer when I opened it but it was very thick.  I poured some into the paint tray to use the roller - this did not go on well - very hard to describe but quite bubbly and not sticking evenly.  I decided to leave the roller and just use the brush.  It took about two hours.  I would have needed to use the brush a lot anyway, as the bathroom is full of narrow panels and fiddly bits.  The first coat looked really streaky, uneven and had some strange drips.  We were quite alarmed, but then this was our first surface that didn't have textured wallpaper all over, so wondered if this was typical for a smooth surface.  The second coat went on late at night after a warm day.  After an hour of hard out painting I was hot and sweaty.  The paint cover looked great, but heaps of drips developed.  It was quite strange.  I kept prancing around flicking over them, but they kept popping up.  In the morning I decided to do a third coat.  I felt quite frustrated about this.  Finally, drips developed on the third coat so I had to touch over them the next day.

I discussed the paint with the shop staff who were very diligent at running through the explanations.  They had no idea, other than it sounded similiar to something that can happen the first few times the paint gets steam exposure (eg from a shower) after painting.  Still, I was a bit disappointed so when the next paint colour to catch my eye came from a competitor I decided to go with it rather than make my next purchase at Resene (of course I was back at Resenes two days later)!

Day 16: Sacking the subcontracted plumbers/ too many testpots

I've been waiting and waiting to hear back from the plumbers who the electricians arranged to put in our roof fan.  I've had great service from these electricians, and OK service this time.  Apparently though they never go ahead and arrange the plumber so I'm peeved with them about this.  I am more peeved though with Aquatic Plumbers, who go on my shit list.  Their communication skills are ridiculous and lacking. 

I appreciate the difficulties in timing when work when you are a tradesperson.  But treating other people's time as unimportant is not on.  Naughty tradespeople will:

• Call/ text at the last minute and change to tomorrow
• Call up and claim that another job has finished early so they could just pop by and fit you in now (I understand this as 'I know you are a stay at home mum and I assume you are at home all the time - you are not important enough to book in').
• Treat stay at home mums as though they have all the time in the world.

If you don't want the work say so, if you do then act like it.

Rant over.

Hopefully my preferred and regular plumbers will be able to fit the roof fan later this week.  The bathroom has been plastered and we have painted over with the stinky oil based sealant.  For some reason though this came out leaving gross brush marks - so we have had to sand and wipe over the walls again.  Lame.

Day 9+10: First go at getting rid of wallpaper, the plumbers come and go.

I used the orbital sander on a patch in the bathroom, then poured boiling water over it.  Didn't help much.  I think that the sandpaper was too fine though, so will give this technique another go.

I heard nothing from the plumbers contracted by the electricians to install the ducting for the bathroom fan so called the electricians back.  The plumber made a date to come, then rang up at the last minute the day before and said that he would come now 'forgetting' his appointment for the next day.  He turned up, then said that someone should have told him about how steep the roof was.  He left, to return one day (it is unclear when, and of course they left no contact details).

I will not be using tradespeople who don't properly schedule appointments.  I'm flexible with my time at the moment, but will not always be.

On the positive side I was referred to a plasterer that scheduled a time to come and give me a quote.  He gave us good information on preparing the surface of the bathroom wall for plastering (oil based sealant).

Day 7&8: Bad wallpaper news and the electricians come

I requested an online quote to strip the rest of the wallpaper in the house.  The bad news is that our wallpaper is evil. It is called anaglypta and it was truly created by the evil spirits of home renovation.  It is textured wallpaper and designed to be painted over.  It is nearly impossible to remove.

The wallpaper removal specialist suggested sanding over the paper then spraying with very hot water and trying to pull it off.  He also suggested plastering over it, and replacing the walls.  Seriously.  We will try sanding and see what happens.

We also identified a few areas where we could use an electrician.  We would like to put a glass splashback behind the stove.  But there is a meaty huge powerplug in the way.  The electrician was unable to move it as the plug is encased in a metal tube behind a false wall!!  He did put a more attractive cover on.




We had one of the old shaver power outlets in the bathroom that to my knowledge does not work.  The electricians replaced it and now we can plug in a hairdryer which will make a welcome change.  The next thing they did was very expensive.  There is a very noisy electric fan in our window that is very ineffective.  It was also wired into the light switch, so you cannot have the light on without the noisy fan.  Bath time is not tranquil.  We got a combination heat/ light/ fan unit for the ceiling.  It involves a plumber to come and cut a hole into our ceiling to install it; we should hear from him or her later in the week.  It will cost about $600, but the increase in warmth, moisture removal and reduction in noise will be worth it.  Now to book a plasterer.




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Day 4&5: Stripping wallpaper and shelving quotes.

I've hit the wall.  It is a bit of a shame, especially because we are only four days into the work!!

I hate our thick bumpy wallpaper.  The bumpiness is not a product of poor wallpapering technique.  Indeed, the only positive thing I can state about the wallpaper is that it is very well applied.  At some stage it has been painted; at least two coats.  Again, this has been done very well.

It is a bitch to remove.

When I first researched removing wallpaper I read that a lot of people just needed a scraper and it came right off. I learnt that sometimes, if it is really thick you might need a wallpaper steamer.  A friend came over and we had an experimental rip of the wallpaper in the bathroom.  Only a tiny bit came off.  This is the bathroom mind you, a small, poorly ventilated space that gets a lot of steaming.  The floor and walls also get pretty wet from enthusiastic small child water play.  The steam and water have not damaged the wallpaper.  Lame.

Today my friend came over to have a go removing the wallpaper.  I had no idea how it would go, but thought that perhaps we would get the bathroom and landing done.  In my wildest dreams of easy wallpaper removal I thought that I might strip the wallpaper in the kitchen overnight.

No.  It is very hard.  We scored the wallpaper with a little device that promptly broke.  I took it back to Resenes for replacement.  In the meantime my friend had continued with the steamer.  On returning to the house I checked on progress.  The bathroom was a sauna!  My friend was down to his boxer shorts!  I opened the window and set up a fan.  Later I had a go at using the steamer.  It was slow and hard and only moderately faster than using nothing.

By the end of the day my friend had spent seven solid hours working hard out on the bathroom.  It was two thirds complete.  By the end of day two and four more hours the bathroom was stripped bare.  With the cost of labour and hiring the machine it was a pricey way to do things.  It also created a giant wet sticky mess.

The wallpaper was directly onto hardboard and I can see we will need to re-plaster before painting.

I googled local wallpaper removal companies; this is not something we are going to be doing ourselves.

I'd had high hopes that we would be able to get the wallpaper off all the locations where I want to install the shelving.  We did none :(


On the plus side I got a quote from the joiner for built in shelving.  I'm hoping my husband will agree :)

However, there will be no shelves until I remove the wallpaper underneath.