Bathrooms are often seen as the ugliest room in any home. When a home is being redecorated the bathroom seems to be the one room that’s left out of the grand decorating plan. Bathrooms will have a lot of attention paid to them in terms of furniture and accessories but almost zero attention paid to, potentially, the most important part of the room – the walls!
Sometimes using pictures or murals in a bathroom is enough to help but there’s an awful lot of wallspace to cover and in a lot of cases the walls are blocked by some bathroom fixtures – vanity cabinets for example. So if you want the walls in your bathroom to look a lot more interesting you’ll need to try some alternative painting techniques instead. Sponge painting is one such way that you can add color and texture to your bathroom walls without doing lots of extra work or spending a lot of extra money.
Sponge painting is always much easier if your bathroom is in the middle of being redecorated and has no furniture or fittings in it so aim for this approach if at all possible. That being said you can still work around fixtures and furniture and sponge paint your bathroom effectively – it just takes that bit more effort.
The key to sponge painting is preparation. Try to keep your bathroom “free” of visitors for a few days when you decide to sponge paint it. Also make sure you have plenty of drop cloths and tape to cover up any exposed furniture and bathroom fittings – especially ceramic items like the toilet itself. Also ensure that nobody takes a shower or hot bath for at least 24 hours before you paint the bathroom. If the walls are even a tiny bit damp then it will ruin the final painting effect.
Your first step once the bathroom is prepared is to paint on a base coat. Your best color choices for a base coat are white, off-white or a light blue. This is strictly down to personal preference just make sure that the base coat is lighter than the final color you intend using. Once the base coat is 100% dry then apply your second coat of paint. Once you’ve applied the second coat then take your sponge and soak up paint from different areas to achieve that sponged look. This allows you to properly expose the base coat of paint in the desired manner.
Now that you’ve finished sponge painting your bathroom maybe you can try the same effect in other rooms in your home?
