Back on day 103, my friend across the street called asking for some ideas about painting her kids bathroom.  I’m sure Diane is thinking… *note to self*, don’t ask Jody a decorating question unless you want to remodel your entire house.

The bathroom turned out great! Here’s the story… in photos.  :)

Idea. “Light bulb” as Gru would say in Despicable Me.  Of course you can paint your bathroom, and here’s 50 other ideas you can do in there.  Kids bathroom, shared by a sister and brother, needs to be good for both, not girly and not manly.

Color. Color pallet?  One wants black and white, the other wants red and gray.  No problem!

Work. Dave is one of those get-it-done-now people.  He got started right away.  This idea started with texturing and painting the walls and turned into an entire remodel of the room.  Demolition Dave has it under control.  he had the whole room torn out in less than an hour.  

Point of no return. Linoleum?  If it’s down good, you can tile over it.  If you rip it out, you could have a mess.  As I explained the options, Dave ripped out a piece.  there’s no going back now…  I’m not sure he had any idea what flooring they would replace it with, but he was ready for a change.

Decision time. Using my downstairs bathroom floor as the inspiration, we all decided that the fun floor would be the best option.  This is not only a fun floor solution on concrete, but it’s very inexpensive.  Most of the supplies were things from my garage or stuff the kids had.

Inspiration. My bathroom floor.  Scrapbooking paper, words from magazines, all glued to the floor with and acrylic clear coat over it.  Yes, it cleans easily.  That’s the question I get most often.

Supplies. Here’s what was used:

• floor stain
• distilled water
• clear acrylic
• spray glue
• paper artwork (magazines, decorative paper, comics)

The process. After the floor was scraped and cleaned, it still has the texture (also known as character) from the linoleum.  Time to stain!  Bright red concrete stain, left over from a previous project, mixed with distilled water.

Slacker neighbor. I wanted to help with the whole project, but time is not on my side.  I helped with some touch up stuff and staining the floor.  They did everything else.  We did two coats of stain, and this stuff goes a long way.  Also, it doesn’t take too long to dry.

Adding the artwork. Cut up pieces of paper with artwork.  Magazines, any decorative paper, comic books or books will work.  Cardstock is too thick, but really thin paper is challenging, as it can buckle when wet with glue.

Spray the glue (outside) on the back of the art.  Place it on the floor.  Use a brayer with wax paper if any of it starts to buckle.  Fill up the floor as desired.  If using words, place them in different directions so there’s something to read from every place in the room.

Once you have all the artwork down, let it dry, then paint the acrylic clear coat on top.  Since this is a bathroom, I would use 2 or 3 coats.  Dave used 5.  (overachiever)  LOL!

Final product. Here it is!  Random art in fun patterns.

I know your next question, and I addressed it in my last post about this.  It won’t hurt your resale value, as all you have to do is slap some tile over this to turn it back to ‘normal’.  Fun floors, inexpensive and easy to change.

Why is this on rethinkgood.com? Many reasons.

Supply trades: We traded supplies and tools to do a lot of this, so they didn’t have to buy as much.  Paint, joint compound, floor stain, tools… all of it.  I took the old builder’s grade light fixture to make a chandelier for my dining room.

Saving money: Just speaking for the floor, the total cost if you were doing this with all new supplies would be less than $100.  The great thing about this floor?  All leftover supplies, with the exception of some scrapbooking paper And a can of spray glue.

Reusing & repurposing: Most magazines end up in the recycling bin.  This is a great way to reuse stuff.  This concept also works on walls with wallpaper glue.  It can be removed just like wallpaper.  It’s a great way to use up all that extra paint and stain.  BTW, watered down acrylic paint can be substituted for stain.

Thanks Diane for putting up with me and my crazy ideas.  :)