Bathroom Renovation: Painted Baseboard…Check

It’s official…I hit a major MAJOR milestone this week in our bathroom makeover (started over a year ago I might add).  I finally FINALLY painted the baseboard that Colby installed about six months ago.  I don’t know why I procrastinate so badly on such small projects.  So this is what our bathroom looked like last week…pre-baseboard painting:

Actually that’s not true.  That photo was from before the bathroom art project.  And before we actually finished all the baseboard.  Look closely under the tub and you’ll find a missing board.  But check out how ridiculously awesome our bathroom looks now…with painted baseboard:

And please disregard the falling hearts.  I forgot to tape my map heart art to it’s matting.  It’s on the list to fix.  As for the baseboard…it’s subtle, I know, but sometimes it’s the little things that make you go “mmmmm”.  I also like to work nineties pop cliches into the blog if at all possible too.  Our baseboard is composed of a regular old pine board with a base cap on top.  We pre-primed the pine board which is why the first picture looks half painted.  After all the wood was installed I went around the baseboard punching in nails, filling the holes with wood putty and then sanded everything down with our Milwaukee multi-tool.  Oh power tools how I heart thee!  I applied a couple thin and even coats of primer using my genius painting technique:

I used a piece of card stock to protect the floor (and also the wall but that one was more difficult to photograph in action) while painting along.  It easily slid between the floor and the baseboard to protect the floor from errant paint strokes.  I know, I know…how did I get so smart?  Well…I did recently graduated with a GPA of a gah-gillion with a degree in awesomeness…so you know…it’s a given.  Unfortunately, my painting trick only worked for the first two coats of primer, after that I spent some time caulking.  Let’s take a second to talk about the caulking, which turned out awesome:

It sealed up all the gaps but it was painstakingly difficult to do.  I chose the word “painstakingly” for a reason. You see, it was a breeze until I hit the section around the toilet.

Absolutely impossible to get your hand behind the toilet let alone a caulking gun.  So that was fun.  Then I got to the area under the sink area and used nearly a whole tube of caulk filling in the GINORMOUS gap between the baseboard and the floor due to our uneven, old floors.  Let’s just say I’m thankful to be done caulking the bathroom baseboard and caulk is a renovator’s best friend.  Truth!  Especially if the renovator owns a 100+ year old home.  My favorite section the newly painted baseboard is under the tub:

It finally looks finished in that area.  Which is such a great feeling.  It’s been alot of work but so worth it.  Especially since our bathroom used to look like this:

Oh yeah….that’s a whole lot of ugly!

So because I truly like a re-cap of the DIY project evolution, here is the whole shebang.  We first did a little demo, and then we drywalled and painted the whole thing yellow, oh and we can’t forget the tub tossing found here and here, installed the shelves, tiled the floor here and the shower here, moved in the plant, grout sealed, installed towel hooks and labels here, then did it again more securely here, celebrated one year’s progress in the bathroom blogiversary tour, painted the door here, designed the vanity but still have yet to build it (cough…procrastinators…cough cough), painted the yard sale mirror here, purchased the tile for the vanity top but still have yet to build it, fixed some cracked grout in the shower, installed bead board on the slanted ceiling, and made map heart art as part of the Pinterest Challenge.  We’ve been busy!

Pssst….please comment on my blog.  Please please please please please!  Don’t make me beg or grovel!  It doesn’t even need to be about my blog.  If you want to tell me you like the color red…that’s cool.  I like red too.