I didn’t get quite as far along with the bathroom over the weekend as I’d hoped, but the good news is that the glued-on mirror was removed, the walls were prepped and are now ready for primer and wallpaper!
I start by removing the mirror. A big THANK YOU to everyone who gave me tips on how to get this mirror off the wall. It’s clear that when I hung this mirror on the wall several years ago, I had no intention of ever removing it again. Due to the amount of mirror mastic I had used, it was intended to stay on this wall until the end of time. So removing it was slow and laborious, but I just worked patiently and methodically until every piece of it was gone.
I didn’t want to have to buy anything (e.g. piano wire) if I didn’t have to. Based on your suggestions and seeing what I had on hand, I decided to use my heat gun and wooden washers. This actually worked perfectly! To be clear, it was a perfect solution because I didn’t have the slightest worry that this mirror would break. Since I didn’t plan on reusing it, I didn’t care if it would break when I removed it. If I had intended to leave it in one piece, this process would not have worked due to the amount of mirror mastic I had used to attach it to the wall.
Using the wooden washers and a hammer, I pushed the washers all the way between the wall and the mirror.
When I felt resistance, I stopped, used my heat gun to soften the glue, and then hammered the washers in as far as I could until I felt resistance again.
As each piece broke, I pulled it off the wall and then repeated the process with the heat gun and washers.
It was a fairly slow process that required some patience.
Also, I didn’t bother taping the front of the mirror because I knew I had used so much mirror putty to attach the mirror to the wall. Not a single piece of the mirror fell on its own. As you can see below, I literally had to rip every single piece off the wall. There wasn’t a single piece that didn’t have mastic on it.
So, lesson learned. If I ever glue a mirror to a bathroom wall again, I’ll use a much smaller amount of mirror mastic and just put it in the four corners and maybe a dab in the center of the mirror. Perhaps. But what I did when I put this mirror on the wall was over the top, and that’s an understatement.
I scraped off the mastic left on the wall using my heat gun and a drywall mud knife. It actually came off very easily. But as you can see below, the entire process caused significant damage to the wall.
So after removing the whole thing, I had to spend quite a bit of time sanding down the rough edges, mudding the entire area (along with the areas around the room where the tile and trim had been removed), and then doing a fair bit of sanding once the drywall mud had dried.
But the good news is that these walls are now sanded and ready for priming.
I let the primer dry for about 24 hours, then I can start applying the wallpaper! While I wait for that, I can move on to installing the trim to finish the top portion of the wainscoting and finish everything off. I bought all the trimming I need for this yesterday so I’m ready to start today.
So if it was just a matter of the majority having their say, the decision would have been made. But since this is my house and my studio and my bathroom, it’s not quite that easy. For me, this one is still in the running and actually has a slight advantage over the eggplant vanity.
So at this point I don’t think I need any more input. I just have to make a decision and get it done. Who knows what will happen to me in the end? I could switch between the two ten more times before I actually stand at the paint counter at Home Depot and order paint. And even after it’s painted and the wallpaper is put up, I might change my mind. After all, I am me and that’s what I do when I’m not 100% happy with something. But if I were forced to make a decision now, one might expect green vanity. I would probably make it a little brighter than the green on the back entrance walls of the studio. But we’ll see! It could all depend on my mood at the moment.
