Bathroom troubles

So you think you can do a small bathroom update in a weekend?  Well not at my house!  I thought ugh I hate this master bathroom color, far too bright and the paint always looks dirty.  So, I'll paint it over the weekend, get a new shower curtain, may be some molding around the window and a baseboard... how much can it cost and how much time can it really take?  Yeah, a long time!

So this is the before:

Ugly blue.  See that surround - picture vinyl flooring on the wall.  U G L Y!  I thought I could paint that, yeah no.  I tried but it peeled off when I took a shower.  So for now I'll just keep hiding it!
We are eventually going to totally re-do this bathroom, we've got nails coming through the drywall everywhere because none of it is waterproof.  So we know we've got mold that we will need to deal with professionally.
So in the meantime I thought, oh I'll just paint, get a new light fixture and some molding - easy huh.  NO!
Let's start with the light fixture.  When we removed the old one the wall behind it was like swiss cheese and the electric box that the wires fit in didn't fit the new light fixture.

A repair to the wall was needed.  I bought this mesh at HD for $2.99.  You fill the holes with the Wallboard Joint Compound.  The tub's start at $12.99.  Then place the mesh over the holes and cover with more of the wallboard.  We didn't care too much about being neat as we were doing texture on the walls.  Otherwise you need to be a bit neat.

Tip:  Make sure you let each coat dry fully before you put on the next coat.  This is important, don't skip this step otherwise you will have a muddy mess on your hands!  Trust me.
We layered and layered and sanded between each dry layer and that took a while, even with a fan blowing on the spot it still took 2 full days just to do this step.

Now onto the textured walls.  If you really want a clean look this idea will not be for you.  If you like the clean look you will need to take the Sheetrock All Purpose Joint Compound, the tub is about $30.00, and fill all the holes in your walls.  Again, you need to let the compound dry fully and then sand, sand, sand.  I decided that I didn't want to fill holes, scratches etc. on the walls and opted to do a texture on walls instead.  My walls were in bad shape and to fill all the problems would take a long time so I opened the drywall compound, got my rubber trowel and went to work.  I just played with the texture, placing a lot of the compound on the trowel and slathered it on the wall.  I tried not to make any sort of pattern opting instead to make it look older and added to over time.
This took a long time to dry, even with the fans blowing on the walls day and night.  I think it took 3 full days to dry.
The next step is sanding, yep sanding, sanding, sanding.  Then you need to clean the walls, wipe them down really well and even vacuum them BEFORE you begin to paint.

Painting.  I used Sherwin Williams, poolside.  SW makes several kinds of paint that start at $32.00 a gallon.  My hubby chose their new 'Emerald' line of paint, guaranteed to repel mold and mildew and paint over anything.  The Emerald line of paint is pricey, SW is very proud of this paint.  I freaked when he told me it was $62.00 a gallon!!  Because of the sheet-rock compound on the walls the little 8X12 bathroom took 2 gallons of paint at $62.00 a gallon, yep that is a whopping $124.00 for PAINT!  But I love, love, love the color.
I also wanted molding, I thought it would make the window seem bigger and bring some interest to the bathroom.  I picked out thick baseboard molding and medium size for the window.  I chose white, the molding was already primed, I figured it would save me a step.
OK - rookie mistake #1:  I didn't paint the molding before we put it up.  Unless you are really a neat painter please don't follow my mistake and paint after you put up the molding do it before.  Now you will have to repaint it once you caulk but you will only need to paint over any caulking.
OK - rookie mistake #2:  Caulk.  This is a bathroom so we got waterproof caulk.  You may think this is a good idea, yeah not so much.  MAKE SURE IF YOU USE WATERPROOF CAULK IT IS PAINT ABLE.  Otherwise you end up with this....

I tried and tried to paint over it and the paint just kept spreading and not adhering to the caulk.  We tried KILLZ brand primer, we tried HD Behr primer, $32.00 a gallon, we tried Lowes Valspar primer, $36.00 a gallon; but in the end SW primer at $38.00 a gallon worked the best. What a mess!
At this point I really just wanted to be done, just done.  We put up the light fixture, $45.00 at HD and I just wanted to shut the bathroom door and never go in there again.
We are well over $200.00 at this point and I haven't even bought towel racks, a window or shower curtain or even hand towels.
Two and a half months later the bathroom is painted and that is about it.  I'll post the final finished product soon, if I ever fully finish it.  This bathroom wasn't cheap for a simple paint job so I've got to save up some money to complete the project.
I hope you've enjoyed reading this post and hopefully have learned what not to do if you try a small bathroom re-do yourself.