Wallpaper is a Goner!

This last spring I spent my spring break redoing our hall bathroom.  In our defense, this wallpaper was put up around 12 years ago.  But actually never-mind, there's NO excuse that it didn't come down sooner.  With that said, here's the before:

Stop it.  I know.

So, I told my mom I would take the bathroom on as my project.  This included taking the wallpaper down, priming, painting, picking out new towel and accessories.  Okay, let me tell you...wallpaper is so not easy to take down.  But after tears and chipped nail polish:

Here's the trick: score the wallpaper to no end.  You cannot score too much!  Then mix warm water with laundry detergent and soak the walls 3 times before you even start trying to pull the paper off the wall.  Glad we figured that out about 6 hours into the project (: After the paper is down, sand the walls and spackle any imperfections then sand one last time!  Prime (our walls were a little worn, so I did 2 coats of primer) and two coats of paint.

As you can see above, we were testing colors.  It's important to put the colors you're considering in a few different places in the room you're painting.  Key places are spots where the lighting is different.  Up high and low on the wall, by natural light, by a lamp etc.  Then you can see how the color looks according to the lighting.  One of the colors we had up in a shaded corner went green on the wall, so we vetoed that one.

Anyways,  here's the one we went with:

It's the yellow gold we drew from the painting we bought from Z Gallerie.  This painting lent itself to the color palette of our bathroom, since my mom found the painting first.  It was our inspiration.  From there, we bought brown and turquoise towels:

Then decor for the counter:

Then I did some wall art for behind the door and bought this shabby chic towel rack from Pier 1 Imports:

My mom found these adorable postcards from Capitola, California (near Santa Cruz) and it was the perfect artwork to frame in the sweet white frame above the sink.  (Color scheme and frame also coordinate with the inspiration painting.)  The white vases I made on the counter were the recent finishing touch (:

And there ya have it!  A wallpaper nightmare turns into a welcoming hall bathroom!

I'm sharing this post with Thrifty Decor Chick!

Love and Saying Goodbye to Flowered Wallpaper,