Worse before it gets better?

OK people. I’m on a mission. A mission to complete the two bathrooms I’ve been putting off forever around here. EONS! I’m making great progress in the basement bathroom and showed you the latest on that one here.

At least that one is functional. The upstairs bathroom is only halfway so – it’s been a couple months since we’ve had a sink in there and that’s because of all of the parts of the room that needed to happen first.

I’ve gotten SO much done over the past couple of weeks – I’m so thrilled! But the room doesn’t look much better…yet. ;) I keep telling myself that it always seems to get worse before it gets better.

Let’s hope anyway.

I was laughing to myself in the car earlier this week thinking about this project because it is truly laughable how long it’s taken me. I am not kidding when I say it’s been in an unfinished state for about three years now. For awhile it was because I couldn’t decide what I wanted to do…and then it was just because it’s been a really labor intensive space and there’s only one me and now…well, I’m just TIRED. :)

You may remember years back I had had enough of the brown walls and started painting over them, but only one coat. I figured why do all the walls when I knew I was going to do a wood treatment over most of them? You know…three years later?:

Whatever. Who’s counting? :)

I actually started installing the wood on the back wall about a year ago. It’s sat like this – one wall done and a few pieces on another wall -- for all this time:

Then because we got the new floors put in, I had to get the wall behind the toilet and sink done fast, and I showed you how I did that here.

What I don’t think I’ve shown you is the wall color I tried out. Last summer I was playing around with the idea of using a red color above the wood treatment – and I actually did like it:

(Ignore the halfway done door trim.)

But it was really bold and I’m just not feeling the red in this little space. And I used to have some red accents in the nearby family room and I’m phasing those out, so I didn’t feel like it will flow well:

Good thing I only tried it out on a couple little walls, yes? ;)

See? I told you…it’s a hot mess. Yes, our visitors see this every time they come over. I aim to impress.

You can see there that I finally got all the wood up – it actually didn’t take long at all, maybe a couple hours total to finish it up.

What took FOREVER was the priming. I used an oil-based primer to make sure none of the knots come through later on. OH my goodness. Forever! Painting paneling or beadboard is no joke.

I seriously think I may hire out the next two coats of white paint. Did I mention I’m tired?? :)

I was so thrilled with my progress though! I showed my Sis when she came by, expecting a few props. But mostly she just gave it the stink eye and was all…but it’s not DONE, right?

No sister. It’s not. Thanks.

I can’t say I blame her for the stinky eyes thought – it really doesn’t look all that much better right now. The planks don’t match up on all the walls (when I’m done you’ll see why that won’t matter), the primer does the wood no favors, and I still have a bunch of boards to install to hide all the ugly parts.

But I power on!! I got the baseboards installed:

And the new vanity about a third of the way assembled:

Dad is coming to help me hook the sink back up today and he doesn’t know yet that he’ll be helping me finish up that vanity too. ;) It would be the bees knees to have a working sink in there by the weekend!

It doesn’t look like much now, I know. OK…it still looks like a bit of a disaster. But I can see a light at the end of the tunnel, finally. It’s getting there:

At a turtle’s pace…but it is. I’ll show you the wall color next week and hopefully plenty more progress too! I’m on a mission! WHOO!

I know most don’t take three years to do the tiniest of rooms, but please tell me I’m not the only one who doesn’t makeover a room in weeks? Or months? Years.