Powder Room Reveal!

There has been a toilet in my family room for the last two months.

Okay, I am exaggerating.  Most of the time it was on the deck.  But for much of the last two months it was definitely not in the powder room.

Our Powder Room before.  The wallpaper, in all its blinding glory, was original to the house.
Vintage 1986.

Woe is me, it's been tough.  However, the worst part about re-doing our powder room walls wasn't having to hike upstairs once an hour every day, it was the sheer panic.  You see, my poor Hubs started the fairly routine task of pulling down wallpaper with enthusiasm and gusto, but was quickly beat back by what will be known henceforth as the MAFU (the Mystery Adhesive from the Underworld).  Even a pro couldn't i.d. this stuff.  By the time the wallpaper came down, half the drywall came with it, and we were left with a straight mess.  And panic--what are we going to DO with these WALLS???

Yikes.

Then, like the sun breaking through the rainclouds and lighting up our world, inspiration struck.  Let's just go with it, we thought.  And that is what we did.  We went with it.  We kept all the texture that crazy MAFU left behind and painted right on top of it.  First we primed, then painted with white eggshell paint.  Hubs did sand out the peeling parts and smoothed some of the texture off, but most of it remains.

With primer and paint.  Already looking better.

After he got done painting, I mixed some Martha Stewart glazing medium with artist's acrylics in burnt sienna, raw umber and yellow ochre, until it looked like a color I could live with.  Then I toweled it on the wall, right on top of the texture. And here is the final result:

Here is a close-up of the wall.  I am trying to show you both the actual texture and the faux-texture of the glazing, but as you can see it is very hard to tell.  And that is the beauty of it.  We didn't have to re-mud our walls or hang new drywall.  We just went with it.

One more time with the Before and After:

Obviously, there is some decorating left to be done.  But I couldn't go another day without sharing my total relief. It's the total relief of just going with it.  And having the toilet back doesn't hurt either.