It was great! I had painted the room pale blue, with a translucent blue overlay that suggested water on the bottom half. They put up little wallpaper cut outs of fish.
They painted seaweed and fish.
All kinds of fish... and squid!Doing all kinds of things...
I loved it!
Alas, over time (and with the aid of many small picky fingers), most of that paint fell off.
We were left with crumbly bits of paint clinging to the banged up walls. Clearly, it was time to repaint the bathroom.
So I waited five more years.
I simply could not bring myself to do it. I would like to say that I could not bring myself to deface my children's art, but, in truth, I simply thought it was going to be a huge job.
Well, have you ever had a job you dreaded doing, and then, when you actually did it, it wasn't that bad?
This was not like that.
I ended up soaking all the walls in wallpaper remover, scraping them with a putty knife, scrubbing them with a scrub brush, scrubbing them again with TSP, and then scrubbing them again with water to get the TSP off.
TSP (tri sodium phosphate) is an industrial detergent that is so strong that it can be used to take the gloss off of paint. My Dad, mishearing me in the throes of this project, asked, "You used TNT?"(tri nitro toluene, the stuff in dynamite).
No. But I will definitely consider it for next time.
Now for the happy ending:
After all the prep work, patching, sanding, and repainting was easy peasy lemon squeezy!
I even decided to paint the cabinets white and spring for new bath mats. It looks great!!!
And this time I got wall sticker fish that are easily removable!!
