I have recently embarked on the journey that is redoing one of our guest bathrooms. Unfortunately, I don't have any before pictures (sad, I know) but for those of you who have seen it before, it was really bad. Picture in your mind's eye an art deco mish mash wallpaper of black and white zig zags and gray and red lilies, not unwholly like this:
Pretty bad, right?
Add to this a bright red counter top with black (dirty) sinks:
Now throw in gray floor tiles, glass bricks, and a black toilet and bathtub and you get one hot mess of an ugly bathroom.
The first step to rehabilitation was to remove the wallpaper, which wasn't too hard considering the 20+ years the shower has been steaming it off. Next, texture and paint: we watered down joint compound and slathered it on the wall, then made circular motions with a texture brush (<$15 at Home Depot).
The whole counter project cost about $20. What do you think?
The first step to rehabilitation was to remove the wallpaper, which wasn't too hard considering the 20+ years the shower has been steaming it off. Next, texture and paint: we watered down joint compound and slathered it on the wall, then made circular motions with a texture brush (<$15 at Home Depot).
The big job though, was the counter tops. I played around with a few ideas and finally came up with my solution. First, remove any caulking and sand the counter to give it some tooth. Next, I painted mine black with a craft acrylic because I didn't want any chance of red showing through (I taped off around the counter first, but not around the sinks because I wanted to get right up next to them with the black). 
Here it is after two coats.
Much better, but not quite done yet!
Next, I taped off the sinks and sprayed on a textured, stone-like spray paint.
Here's the counter after one coat.
One more coat takes care of most of the splotchy-ness.
A couple of touch ups and 3 coats of Spar-Urethane later, and this is what we got:
