White paint works wonders as a way to brighten any space. While the French Finesse bathroom renovation has only just begun, wait until you see how much difference painting the wood bead board walls with white paint has made to the bathroom already.
The narrow bathroom is so much brighter with the sunlight from the skylights reflecting against the white wood walls. The plank wood ceiling, massive structural beams, and roof rafters were already white before the renovation began. Now the bead board wood walls are the same white instead of the bright pink from before.
FRENCH FINESSE BATHROOM
New White Paint
No. 4
BEFORE
In the before photo, the bright sunlight also reflected against the painted pink walls, but not as much as with the white walls. The bathroom was darker than it is now with the white walls.
White paint also highlights all the little imperfections camouflaged by the darker pink paint. Look carefully at the wood boards and you can spot small holes in them. The holes are now more noticeable with the white paint. The painter filled in the holes with spackling today and will come again in a few days after the paint and spackling have dried completely. He will sand everything and add another coat of white paint.
The painter primed the pink wood walls with white primer first. The photos shown are after the first top coat of white paint was applied. Either the painters who did the original painting years ago did not prime the ceiling and rafters, or they used the wrong kind of primer to hide the knots permanently, which are now visible.
We decided not to repaint the ceiling and rafters, but to leave them with the knots peeking through the white paint. A little added character with a history...
This view shows a better perspective of the layout of the bathroom. You can clearly see that the vaulted ceiling is open over two sections of the bathroom separated by a door in an eight-foot wall. Light from both skylights shines into both sections.
The interior trim around the roof skylights is the original unpainted pine trim and shows how thick the roof is.
The pine plank decking of the ceiling in the whole house is the underside of the first layer of the roof. Waterproof lining covers the plank decking, followed by two layers of thick solid foam insulation. One layer of insulation runs horizontally, and the second layer runs vertically in a pattern for which no adjoining seams of one insulation layer coincides with seams for the other layer of insulation. Another layer of waterproofing material covers all of the insulation, which is topped with a final roofing layer of asphalt shingles.
The new bright white paint makes the old wallpaper look better than it looked with the pink paint.
However, even though the paper looks better to the eyes, removing the wallpaper will be one of the last things in the bathroom renovation. We like the wallpaper, but there are damaged sections, and the entire border has lifted at the edges. When the major demolition of the tub, faucets, surrounding tile, and vinyl flooring happens, chances are great the paper will be damaged further. The painter scraped the paper in a couple places already.
Plus the style of the paper is more country cottage than French Country, and one of the purposes of updating the decor during the renovation is to add more distinctive French Country style.
Progress is slow, but happening, with the new white painted walls. Still no fixed date from the contractor for starting Phase One of a new shower replacing the shower/tub combination...
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