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Topic: 2 Questions: Toilet Door and Wall Finish (Read 9 times) previous topic - next topic
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2 Questions: Toilet Door and Wall Finish
Yahoo Message Number: 108891
Continued thanks and Happy New Year to this forum:  2 Questions re: 24' T/K 1997.
1.  I want to cut the toilet door to 22" width and re-hang with hinges to right.  Anyone know how the edge trim and/or the mirror are attached and an easy way to remove either?  Heat gun to soften glue? Gentle prying?  Or just destroy and move on?
2.  We'd like to recover or paint the small wall next to the kitchen sink.  The current (original) covering seems to be a sort of plasticized paper.  Anyone with knowledge about removing or resurfacing this material.  Thinking maybe light sanding/cleaning and painting with a good enamel.
 Thanks for any ideas.  Appreciate the help.  John Boles
Re: 2 Questions: Toilet Door and Wall Finish
Reply #1 –
Yahoo Message Number: 108893
At 09:36 PM 1/1/2010, you wrote:

Quote
2. We'd like to recover or paint the small wall next to the kitchen sink. The current (original) covering seems to be a sort of plasticized paper. Anyone with knowledge about removing or resurfacing this material. Thinking maybe light sanding/cleaning and painting with a good enamel.
We did this, and it was simple. We thoroughly washed and rinsed the wall, just as you would do at home on your regular wallboard. Then we applied two coats of a good-quality interior semi-gloss enamel paint, and the job was done. Five years later, when we sold our old rig, the job still looked great. BTW, our "wallpaper" had figures on it as well, so we used two coats to cover the design better.

I would NOT sand the stuff. I think it might tear, and then you'd have a real mess trying to remove all of it. Just clean and paint.

Good luck!

Sonsie
Re: 2 Questions: Toilet Door and Wall Finish
Reply #2 –
Yahoo Message Number: 108896
I agree with Sonsie: Don't sand, do clean thoroughly and rinse.  I used a coat of Kilz2 (water-based) primer and two coats of regular household interior semigloss in the kitchen and bathroom, and it looks fine 4 years later.

Joanne in Boston NE-44
Re: 2 Questions: Toilet Door and Wall Finish
Reply #3 –
Yahoo Message Number: 108906
"I want to cut the toilet door to 22" width and re-hang with hinges to right. Anyone know how the edge trim and/or the mirror are attached and an easy way to remove either?"
 I've done this job on the late Bill Haas's rig, "Green Thumb." You'll have to destroy the mirror to remove it--it's very thoroughly glued on, in typical Lazy Daze fashion. ;-) It's easy enough to buy a $30 full-length mirror at a hardware store to replace it. As for the edge trim, a heat gun or hair dryer will help to soften it, then just carefully pull it off.
 Once you've cut down and rehung the door, you'll have room on the adjoining wall for a pantry cupboard--see my web page for photos and plans. :-)

http://www.andybaird.com/travels/gertie/pantry.htm>
 "We'd like to recover or paint the small wall next to the kitchen sink."
 You've already gotten good advice on this. I did the same on my first Lazy Daze: cleaned and then painted with latex semigloss enamel. But I'd like to suggest an alternative, one that I used in my current LD: self-stick vinyl tile.
 The textured wallpaper in my 2003 midbath is very hard to keep clean; you pretty much have to scrub it with a toothbrush to get out the accumulated grime. That made it a particularly bad choice for the area around the stove and sink, where it was subject to spatters of various kinds. One afternoon while shopping in Home Depot, I got the bright idea of covering that kitchen wall area with vinyl tile. I bought a box of slate-like tile for less than twenty bucks.
 The thin vinyl tiles were easy to cut to shape with scissors. I found that the adhesive on the tiles wasn't strong enough to reliably hold them to the textured wallpaper, so I used Liquid Nails cement, with masking tape holding them in place until the adhesive dried. (Household Goop works just as well--I used it when I ran out of Liquid Nails in mid-project.) In about two hours I had the whole stove and sink wall area covered.
 The result is an attractive surface that's easy to wipe clean. Many people have commented on how good it looks; I've posted a photo in the "Kitchen Improvements" folder of our Yahoo website. Some folks ask "Doesn't the heat of the stove damage it?" Nope--not any more than it damages your plastic-coated wallpaper. :-)
 It's worth considering. For my money, it looks a lot better than a repainted wall, and it's more durable: no nicks or scuffs, no retouching ever needed. After all, vinyl tile is designed to be walked on. The cost is comparable to painting, and it's actually less work (and certainly less mess!) to do.

Andy Baird http://www.andybaird.com/travels/
Andy Baird
2021 Ford Ranger towing 2019 Airstream 19CB
Previously: 1985 LD Twin/King "Gertie"; 2003 LD Midbath "Skylark"
Re: 2 Questions: Toilet Door and Wall Finish
Reply #4 –
Yahoo Message Number: 108911
Tremendous thanks to Sonsie Conroy, Joanne 0012, and Andy Baird for the suggestions/solutions. You confirmed my suspicion that sanding wasn't a good idea, but that painting would work on the walls. We were aware of the "pantry" modification done by Andy (and recently visited Tom Johnston who did the same), once the bathroom door is narrowed; in fact, that's our intent.
My mate loves the idea of the vinyl tile so off we'll go to Home Despot:  damn, she wants to the bathroom now, too! Great fun.  JBoles